Our attempts to inoculate them against this and other risky behaviors isn’t working now and hasn’t for decades. Parents and educators need tools to help them to chart a bold new path when it comes to the subject of drugs and our children. Concerned adults should be empowered to use their intuition to guide them through the tough decisions that only they can make. Similarly, zero-tolerance also forces school systems to enforce punitive sanctions for drug-related infractions that only serve to alienate those who need the most support. This perverse dynamic is punctuated nowhere more severely than in the case of youth of color, who are more likely to bear the brunt of these policies and with whom zero-tolerance in the academic-setting has been shown to be a major contributing factor triggering the school-to-prison pipeline[i].
[i] http://www.rethinkingschools.org//cmshandler.asp?archive/26_02/26_02_sokolower.shtml