I’ve known the author of this locally viral e-mail for about 7 years and, to my knowledge, there’s never been even the slightest bit of drama associated with her or her family. They’re good people and I believe the story.
And I thought this only happened in bars.
I am writing to you – parents of HP Intermediate & Middle School students – about an incident that occurred on February 12th at a Celebration 8 party at the Lakewood Country Club. Some of you have heard (and been quite startled and appalled) about the event but this letter is really trying to get beyond my normal group of friends and acquaintances to reach a broader group of parents. The school has said they cannot get involved since the incident occurred at an event that was not HPMS sponsored – although should the culprit be discovered and that culprit be part of an extra curricular school activity, they would deal with it by withdrawing privileges for a certain period of time. Given that scenario, I feel it my responsibility to inform you personally. We are so privileged to live in this neighborhood and have such faith in our kids but even smart, seemingly innocent 14 year olds, can lose their way sometimes and find dangerous pranks amusing. We’re here to tell you, they’re not amusing!
Briefly, my 8th grader was at this Celebration 8 party. He drank from open pitchers that were set out on tables in a self serve fashion. After consuming 3-4 drinks (mostly water) he became disoriented, finding it difficult to walk or talk. In his words, he felt completely ‘out of it’. Fortunately, one of the parents chaperoning the event was a doctor and he kept an eye on [child’s name] until we arrived to collect him. It was his opinion that [child’s name] drink had been spiked and he believes with a drug, not alcohol, which we later tried to determine through a blood/urine test. Unhappily, too much time had lapsed between the event and drawing of the fluids and so the analysis revealed no information as to the substance. Nevertheless, it seems that one of our fun-loving youth thought it would be amusing to see what would happen if they spiked a pitcher that night.
In the end, [child’s name] was fine…still a bit foggy the next day, but fine. But what saddens me is that he is seeing the world through slightly different eyes now. Are these ‘pranks’ something we want our kids exposed to? Of course the response down the track at future school and Celebration events will be to monitor all drinks and not serve anything from open vessels but is that all we should do? It seems to me that we need to use this experience to educate our kids. Actually, to educate ourselves too. We need to make them aware that there are dangerous drugs and silly people out there who don’t understand the ramifications of their actions. Please don’t let one of our children end up in the Emergency Room or worse because someone thought it was funny to spike a drink. I’m not an alarmist and I don’t want to appear over dramatic but this sort of silly stunt could easily get out of control.
I am sending this to you via my limited email address list. I would be so appreciative if you would do likewise – forward it on to all those you know – and perhaps we can spread the word without asking the school to help.
Author
