School decides breath mints are lookalike drugs
9 Students Sent To Hospital After Eating Mints
A student at Jackson Memorial Middle School brought a package of Blast Energy SuppleMints to school and shared them with his classmates. These peppermint breath mints resemble Altoids and contain 15 mg of caffeine per serving of 6 mints. For reference, a Coke contains 46 mg of caffeine. The students were taken to the hospital, treated and released. The boy who brought the mints was suspended for 10 days for possession of a look-alike drug.
Cheryl Haschak, superintendent of the Jackson Local school district, said the suspension was for violating the school’s ban on drugs, which covers drug-free items that look like pills.
Police estimate about 39 mints were unaccounted for and could have been eaten by the students.
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Police were investigating and said they would file charges if the mints contained illegal substances. Caffeine is legal.
Holy overreaction, Batman! The school hospitalized 9 students for consuming considerably less caffeine than what you get from a can of soda. Then they realized they couldn’t go after the student for illegal drugs since both caffeine and peppermint are currently legal substances so they decided to categorize breath mints as look-alike drugs. No Altoids, Tic-Tacs or M&Ms allowed at Jackson Memorial!
Better ban gum too - somebody might mistake it for Nicorette.
(Tip credit to Bumper and Tori in Texas)
It wouldn’t surprise me if the mints contained more caffine than they claimed, but it’s not the kid’s fault. I guess kids are just a great target. If you endanger their lives and future no one protects them.
Let’s see the drug warriors explain this one
I despise the K-12 public education system and not a day goes by that I am denied more ammunition for why I believe it to be the most perverse institution in America today. Normally students are just victims of bad policy, but every so often a student …
Pretty soon they’ll ban pop outright from schools as well.
Pretty soon they’ll ban pop outright from schools as well.
All I can say is, where does it end? When will this nonsense stop? We are going to end up with a nation full of uneducated kids because administrators are so quick to throw them out of school. This should be against the law. Congress should step up to the plate and make this illegal in our public schools. What happend to every kid is entitled to a public education. Since the mandatory expulsion laws for guns and distribution of drugs were enacted, school boards and administrators have taken it as an open door to expel students for far more then the law requires. IT is sick and it has to stop.
Actually, this may well be where it ends. When they start banning Tic Tacs, Altoids, etc., they are stepping on some very big toes. Those toes belong to big corporations with lots of money, lawyers, lobbyists, and marketing budgets. Not to mention what would happen if you took the coffeemakers out of the teachers’ lounge.
Surely the hospital workers had a good laugh out of this.
I can imagine taking my two year old in for eating candy.
Who gets to pay the hopital bills? Surely the parents aren’t going to be stuck with it.
Actually Soda/pop will not be banned since the schools get money from the vending machine companies.
Correction, homer. Soda pop machines were banned recently in public schools in Texas. Part of a complete “junk food” ban. Rather amazing, given the potential for lost vending machine revenue, but the Department of Agriculture went for it anyway, out of concern for the growing obesity epidemic (interesting how the dept. of agriculture got control of student lunches, but that’s a different story)
Kids can bring their own sodas and snacks, but one interesting side affect of this ban is no more pizza or bake sale fundraisers on campuses.
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That is the correct amount of caffiene in the mints…I have some. Shouldn’t we worry about real drugs?
It seems like schools are much more reactive than proactive. If they would spend some prevention money on teaching teachers how to show concern for children and being a mentor to them, we might have more productive teens and later adults. Shame, Shame on school administators and school board members who seem to seek more political glory out of expelling a child than saving him from expulsion and getting them on the wron path when straying. Going a bit far to find a reason to expell so as to save face.
These are not drugs (if any are found). There are just regular pepperments and if you check the labels a lot of mints have caffiene, and caffienne is not illegal, it is legal. These schools need to straiten up and focus on students work instead of drugs and everyday problems.
I agree with Isaac. Public schools now spend more time worrying about wether or not a kid brings in mints and gum then they do if a kid brings in actual drugs. If a kid brings gum to P.E., after 20 min. the whole school knows. However, if a kid gets busted on having a real drug in their locker it takes days for a single grade to find out.