Colo. Prep Yearbook Shows Alcohol, Pot

The yearbook pictures, unfortunately, reflect what is really happening in our public schools. The yearbook staff should not be condemmed, but the administrators and parents should be taken to task for trying to hide this problem and blaming the messenger! When we openly and honestly confront the problem will we make a dent in the negative behavior of our students, and then we could worry less about the negative tone in which they are portrayed in the yearbook.

Unfortunately Hope, you are very naive that this only happens in public schools. Kids that went to private schools and come back to public say its much more prevalent than in public. As an Ivy League graduate, I hate to tell you that it is just as prevalent in these prestigious schools. It doesn't just happen at public schools, it happens at all schools. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree - kids learn from their parents!!! Basically the only reason you hear about the PUBLIC schools is because there public. PRIVATE schools can hide it. Ask any teen from Miss Porters or Loomis Chaffee (I don't mean to single them out) etc... about the availability of drugs and alcohol. Its actually much easier than public.
Being a product of both public and private schools. I learned one thing, membership had its privileges!!

As a former high school student, myself, as i'm sure many of you all are. I know that drug use anywhere is always covered up and the pictures and stories portrayed in the yearbook tend to be false. The coke addicted cheerleader is on the front holding on to her alcoholic QB boyfriend. That is just high school. So why should this girl be accosted for doing what we have all wanted to do on the yearbook staff...tell the truth. Let everyone see that high school isnt just about academics and science club. That its social realm extends to further reaches into drugs and alcohol. I would very much like to see this year book and thank this girl for doing what she knew was right.

I have to disagree with the previous comments. Obviously a lot of high schoolers are experiencing drugs and alcohol - no one is ignorant of that fact, and no one is trying to "hide" that fact. There is a time and place for everything. Yearbooks reflect (for lack of a better word) "official" school events, or "sanctioned" school activitites, or the pursuit of achieving the high standards as outlined in the student handbook, school motto, and the school song - it's not suppose to be a documentary on the negative choices teens make, but a reflection of the positive things the school tried to share and impart.

Are you talking about Conifer High School Year Book?

If so Platte Canyon School Districk is very strick on what goes in the Year book. Before the
Year book is sent home with the kids. The Office staff has to look at it and say its good or we need to change that.

Platte Canyon is diffrent then Conifer High School because of the Year book policy

I think the editor did a good job. Yearbooks should show everything-good and bad-memorable about that school year. It’s for the kids to judge their memories importance-their year, what affected them most-not their parents or the staff. Those kids knew they were being photographed and would be identified; they had no problem with it. I don't think the behaviors of the kids in the photos were being glorified since one heading was “Regrets and mistakes.” I think the problem is that most parents didn’t/don’t want to believe what is happening in their school or with their kids and their kid’s friends. When you see your kid in that picture you can’t deny it and it’s embarrassing. Let the kids have their yearbook……it’s already been viewed, the cats out of the bag, parents-grow up and deal with it

Everyone here is going under the false asupmtion that smoking weed is bad.

I am the parent that brought this issue into the light because its wrong. The Conifer High School yearbook did not just show pictures of students smoking dope and underage drinking (pouring alcohol down a long funnel into another student's mouth) to demonstrate that this was a problem in the school, it was a promotional effort with captions that read "If you smoke (pot) with me, you chill." "I smoke pot to escape this disillusioned world." and portraying all this as fun, harmless activity. They described police as a "necessary evil" that busted their parties with girls smugly posing with their minors in possession tickets. The same police, I suppose, that pulled the dead high school students out of the Elk Creek nearby the day the yearbook was released.

I am glad to see others outside of Colorado discussing this issue because as parents, no matter where we live, we love our kids. We want them to do well. It was the wrong message to send to the student body and the community. There is not enough anti-drug messages directed toward youth here in Colorado. My kids are drug free, I am not naive or a prude, but its how they been raised and its by God's grace they are drug free. I know kids do drugs, I grew up in the 70's for goodness sake, but what happened in our yearbook is akin to plastering drunk Uncle Bob's picture all over your family album. You just wouldn't do it.

As for smoking weed..its not an innocuous drug. please see this website by the DEA.
http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/marijuana_position.h...

Karen Marshall wrote:

I am the parent that brought this issue into the light because its wrong. The Conifer High School yearbook did not just show pictures of students smoking dope and underage drinking (pouring alcohol down a long funnel into another student's mouth) to demonstrate that this was a problem in the school, it was a promotional effort with captions that read "If you smoke (pot) with me, you chill." "I smoke pot to escape this disillusioned world." and portraying all this as fun, harmless activity. They described police as a "necessary evil" that busted their parties with girls smugly posing with their minors in possession tickets. The same police, I suppose, that pulled the dead high school students out of the Elk Creek nearby the day the yearbook was released.
I am glad to see others outside of Colorado discussing this issue because as parents, no matter where we live, we love our kids. We want them to do well. It was the wrong message to send to the student body and the community. There is not enough anti-drug messages directed toward youth here in Colorado. My kids are drug free, I am not naive or a prude, but its how they been raised and its by God's grace they are drug free. I know kids do drugs, I grew up in the 70's for goodness sake, but what happened in our yearbook is akin to plastering drunk Uncle Bob's picture all over your family album. You just wouldn't do it.
As for smoking weed..its not an innocuous drug. please see this website by the DEA.
http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/marijuana_position.h...

Just so you know i read your website and i can say with absolute certainty thats its propaganda. The stats it gives are mostly fabricated. One example is that they say that there isnt a consensus about whether or not weed is medicine, while the title says its not (which is hypcritical if you think about it). Both statments are wrong. It is scientifically proven that weed helps cancer paitents. Also, becuase of how it takes away pain its benefical for anyone with a chronic illness. Additionaly its claim that weed is addictive is false. Considering the fact that I smoke an oz. a week or so (which is ALOT if you are unfamilar with the issue) and not addicted (ive stopped for over a week and had no withdrawl symptoms) pretty much tells you its not adictive. Furthermore, the idea that weed leads to harder drugs has no basis in reality. Most of my fellow potheads hate coke and heroin and crack etc. let alone smoke the sh*t. And personnally i dont even drink, ive been drunk 2 times in my life but as i mentinoed im a pot head. However it is correct in that affects your driving, which while irrelevent cannot be denied. Also when it talks about other country all they say is that, unfourtunetly there becoming more strict as opposed to actually saying why or anything that actually matters. Finally, your source isnt creditable. Its a government source so its going to be extremely biased and twisted every stat and every fact they can; if you trust the government at face value then you are a mindless idiot who is unable to come up with there own opinions.

An oz a week WOW oh WOW

How many people here who have already graduated high school did NOT try pot or alcohol? My God. Stop acting like this is something new or something horrible. It's called adolesence, and we hope every generation that the kids realize it's stupid and outgrow it. This is nothing new, people! Especially those of you who are now in your 40s, 50s, and 60s.

"As an Ivy League graduate, I hate to tell you that it is just as prevalent in these prestigious schools. It doesn't just happen at public schools, it happens at all schools. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree - kids learn from their parents!!! Basically the only reason you hear about the PUBLIC schools is because there public."
What Ivy League school graduated you? "they're"

i hope karen marshall is happy with her self... she made our little town seem really crappy to the whole world. This and the bailey shooting makes life suck for us