11-Year-Old Thrown Out Of School After Not-Pot Leaf Found In His Backpack
In more Drug War/zero sense idiocy, an 11-year-old boy was suspended from school for an entire year -- 364 days -- after being caught with a leaf that looked like marijuana but, when tested, turned out not to be. Dan Casey reports at Roanoke.com:

At first blush it sounds like an open-and-shut school disciplinary matter in a zero-tolerance age:

Some schoolchildren claim another student bragged about having marijuana. They inform school administrators. An assistant principal finds a leaf and a lighter in the boy's knapsack. The student is suspended for a year. A sheriff's deputy files marijuana possession charges in juvenile court.

All of the above and more happened last September to the 11-year-old son of Bedford County residents Bruce and Linda Bays. He was a sixth-grader in the gifted-and-talented program at Bedford Middle School.

There was only one problem: Months after the fact, the couple learned the substance wasn't marijuana. A prosecutor dropped the juvenile court charge because the leaf had field-tested negative three times.

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Their son remains out of school -- he's due to return Monday on strict probation. But in the meantime, the events of the past six months have wreaked havoc on the formerly happy-go-lucky boy's psyche. His parents say he's withdrawn socially, and is now under the care of a pediatric psychiatrist for panic attacks and depression.

The couple -- both are schoolteachers -- have filed a federal lawsuit against Bedford County Schools and the Bedford County Sheriff's Office. It refers to their son only by the initials R.M.B.

It alleges Bedford Middle School Assistant Principal Brian Wilson and school operations chief Frederick "Mac" Duis violated his due process rights under the U.S. Constitution.

"Essentially they kicked him out of school for something they couldn't prove he did," said Roanoke attorney Melvin Williams, the Bays' lawyer.

In a case like this, there's a strong possibility that some other kid put the leaf in his backpack as a prank, and then tipped off the assistant zero tolerance nitwit.

Here's a smart, happy kid who's had his social environment yanked from him, now has a drug record, and is said to be seeing a shrink for panic attacks and depression.

Because there was a leaf in his backpack? And no, I don't care if the leaf were pot. I hope, someday soon, we'll look at the idea that the government can tell us what we can and cannot put into our bodies is ridiculous and a serious violation of our civil liberties.