Comments on: If This Had Happened Anywhere But School, They'd All Be In Jail

By: mike_lee

mike_lee — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 05:44:33 +0000

"Pssstt . . . hey kid come over here . . . keep this on the down-low but I'll tell you the recipe for prescription strength ibuprofen. Take two regular ibuprofen which are 200 MG each. Now . . . here's where it gets tricky. . . down them at the same time and just like that -[snaps fingers]- 400MG of Ibuprofen induced happiness – damn, you hardcore baby.

By: The World According to Nick - Common Sense Prevails... For Now

The World According to Nick - Common Sense Prevails... For Now — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 18:29:50 +0000

[...] You may recall later last year that I blogged about the 9th Circuit upholding as reasonable, a search in which a 13 year old girl was stripped, exposing her breasts and genital areas, while searching her for ibuprofen based solely on a tip from a teenager that was in trouble for something else. I lamented that it was the Drug WarTM gone out of control, and that I would have simply decked the school officials involved had I been that child's father. Well, in a miraculous bit of common sense by the 9th Circuit, the case was appealed before the entire court, and reversed: [...]

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 23:42:40 +0000

Sarkus, my point isn't that it's prescription strength. My point is you can get the exact same thing with 4 ibuprofen pills you can buy without a prescription. It's completely silly. It's even more silly in light of what J.W. Hammer later posted.

And there is no illicit benefit from using ibuprofen, prescription strength or otherwise.

Dramamine, on the other hand….

By: Brian

Brian — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 21:10:04 +0000

Stupidity abounds. A year or so ago, everyone in my house was sick, and I was sent to the grocery store to procure cough medicine. I had to get cough medicine for my wife, and then I wasn't sure if she wanted Tylenol or Motrin for the kids, so I got both. Or rather I tried to get both. I was stopped at the checkout counter as apparently I could also have been running a meth lab out of my house. I was allowed to choose no more than TWO bottles of cough medicine. I chose poorly.

By: J.W. Hamner

J.W. Hamner — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 21:04:22 +0000

Apparently they had a blanket ban on *all* drugs: illicit, prescription, or over the counter, unless you get explicit permission. It's hard to understand why the school needs to control students' access to pain relief or nasal decongestion, but that does seem like something the school administrators I remember would deem necessary.

I presume the rationale was people hiding ecstasy as regular medicine, so just ban it all… and thus here we seem to have a genuine slippery slope.

By: RobF

RobF — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 20:22:59 +0000

So will this young student be attending college on the Kerry Wilson scholarship?

By: Patrick

Patrick — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 20:19:59 +0000

All you can do with prescription strength ibuprofen (also known as Motrin) is cause yourself internal cramps and a bloody stomach Sarkus. PAR-TAY!

By: Sarkus

Sarkus — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 20:16:06 +0000

As Dave points out, this was about prescription strength drugs, not OTC ones. So what we're talking about are prescription drugs, which kids do abuse. I'm not sure what, if anything, prescription strength ibuprofen can be abused for, but I do see the school having a strict policy regarding prescription drugs for legitimate reasons. It's probably a blanket policy, rather than drug specific.

Not that any of that justifies a strip search, of course.

By: Grandy

Grandy — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:09:53 +0000

Which is why there should have been a cavity search,

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:58:49 +0000

Prescription strength ibuprofen = 4 regular OTC ibuprofen pills.

By: dbt1949

dbt1949 — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:20:06 +0000

How come I never get to strip search thirteen year old girls?

By: Ken

Ken — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:30:18 +0000

You beat me to this one, Patrick.

Allow me to be the first to say "but it was prescription-strength ibuprofen! Think of the children!"

Scandalous. Outrageous. And all-too-common. Stupid drug war.

By: David

David — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:01:47 +0000

Anecdotal data, as reported by millions of mothers around the world, suggests that children just like Savana Redding can drown in as little as a teaspoon full of water.

For that very reason, many such mothers decline to send their children to boarding school.