OTC TROUBLES

OTC TROUBLE : Family disputes teen's expulsion, criminal charges for drug deal

MIDDLETOWN - Steven Scoville, 16, sold cold medicine to a couple of friends in high school last November. Now, because of that decision, he maybe headed to jail for up to 10 years.


Back in mid-November, Steven, a junior, went to school. He was asked by a female friend to get some over-the-counter medication - specifically, Coricidin Cough and Cold.
But the medicine was not used to cure any cold or cough.
"Triple C" is what Coricidin Cough and Cold is called on the streets. According to Steven, the active ingrediant in the medicine, dextromethorphan, is used to get "high." And, he said, that's what it was used for in this case
He said when the medicine is used to get high people will first experience a headache, followed by a stomach ache and vomiting. Then the "high" sets in.
Steven also said people's blood pressure rises and as a precaution, a person could go to the hospital.
After talking with the girl, he went to CVS Pharmacy and purchased the drug. Steven said he returned to school and sold the "Triple C" to the girl. She in turn gave some of it to two other girls and then all three of them took the drug, according to Steven.
It quickly took effect, and in short order the girl and her two friends became sick and began vomiting in the bathroom. That alerted school officials who called an ambulance, which took the girls to Middlesex Hospital, where the girls were treated at the emergency room.
The girls were released, but they had no serious adverse reaction to the medicine. They were released that day.
While this was happening, Steven was called into the principal's office, where he admitted selling the girl the drug.
School officials called Kenneth Scoville, Steven's father, and Steven was sent home. Then Middletown High School Resource Officer Det. Paul Liseo called the Scoville house and informed Kenneth that his son would be arrested.
Steven admitted to, the school, his family and a Press reporter, that he sold drugs to the girl that day.
But, his father researched the student handbook and said he found nothing that said his son could not sell drugs on school property.
"I was confused. I didn't know what was going on," Kenneth said. He said when he thinks of "drugs," he thinks of cocaine, marijuana or heroin. He does not think of cold medicine.
At the end of November, Kenneth and Steven were called to an expulsion hearing.
Kenneth was asked if he was going to bring a lawyer, but he said no. He told The Press Friday he felt that the case was open and shut. He would quickly find out it was not that open and shut - or at least not the way he thought it was.
Kenneth sat next to his son with Superintendent of Schools Michael Frechette, Liseo, Assistant Principal Sheila A. Riffle and a moderator. Kenneth said he had all his materials in front of him and he tried to present his case to the board.
Frechette told Kenneth that "This was not going to happen under his watch." Kenneth said he continued to argue his case, but the moderator told him that he was interpreting the handbook incorrectly.
"She became hostile and did not want to hear it," Kenneth said. "I felt everybody in that room was ganging up on me."
After the panel listened to Kenneth's side, he and his son were asked to leave the room.
Kenneth said after about five minutes, they were invited back into the room. They were told that Steven had been expelled for the rest of the year, that he could not step on school grounds or attend any school functions.
"We were railroaded," Kenneth said.
"They had everything planned, Steven and me did not have a chance."
When contacted, Frechette declined to comment.
Months passed and Steven stayed home. School continued without him and Kenneth tried to think of any way he could help his son. In May, he contacted Riffle and asked her if it was possible to get an appeal. When Riffle called back, she said that it was not possible because Steven was going to be arrested.
The next week, Middletown Police arrested Steven and he was charged with two counts of risk of injury to a minor.
Thursday, Steven appeared in Middlesex Superior Court, and Kenneth found out just how serious the charges are. The prosecutor's office told Kenneth his son is looking at serving anywhere from four to 10 years in jail.
"I totally freaked out," Kenneth said. "I am totally disgusted."
For now, Steven sits at home, watching television and waiting for his day in court, which is June 17. Steven, who had gotten high on "Triple C" with the girls before, said he harbors no hard feelings towards the girls. He said he still talks to them and considers them his friends. He added that they feel bad for him, and do not understand "what the big deal is."
Steven said he and the girls used to do the drug every day. But, he insisted, the day he got caught was the first time he had ever sold the drug.
When asked why he did it, Steven said, "They just wanted it, so I got it for them." He said the girls had "no way of getting it."
Steven and Kenneth both said "Triple C" is part of a bigger problem. Steven said he saw drug deals at school. He said there are not enough guards at the school to stop the problem and kids are buying and selling "all the time."
"They don't search everyone," Steven, who also admitted to doing marijuana, said. They only search people who look suspicious or are constantly in trouble.
Asked why he is going public, Kenneth said, "I want it out there."
He said the girls were only suspended two days, while his son's life could be over.
"I want people to know what is going on in that school," Kenneth said. "The girls won't be buying it, if they didn't know what they were getting into."
Kenneth was asked why he thought his son did it, he said, "I think he did because it was not a big deal." He said he would be upset if anyone was selling in school.
"I would be upset, my feeling it is what it is," he said.
"They took a year away from him - maybe this is something he may not recover from," he said. "Something is wrong. Is him being the seller, any different than the buyer or the user?"
Something may be wrong, but Steven's fate now lies in the hands of a judge.
Calls to Liseo were not returned by press time Friday.
Steven said he is not scared of going to jail. But his father is petrified of the possibility.
He is afraid he will not be able to afford a lawyer and he is afraid he will lose his son, maybe forever.
"I am scared for him," Kenneth said.

http://www.middletownpress.com/site/news.c..._id=10856&rfi=6

[Siffleur]

That is incredibly messed up. too bad the family couldn't afford a lawyer, because having one at the beginning of this mess could've prevented a lot of harm and almost certainly would've kept the kid in school. also, a good lawyer, if they get one, will definitely keep him out of jail...

high schools do tend to get all gestapo on mild-mannered kids when they're embroiled with bigger drug/gang problems, tho. my high school had tons of drugs getting sold on campus, the dean was under lots of stress, and he ended up suspending me for a couple days after some people i was friends with threw some french fries in the lunch room. i didn't even do anything myself.

but you really can't take fucked-up schools personally, even when they single you out. you just have to remind yourself that they're the problem, not you.

[ROBO-t]

I am utterly disgusted with the fact that this is how our judicial system operates. I foresee the consequences of such a judgment to yield no positive results whatsoever. The way I see this all happening is as follows. Steven goes to court on the seventeenth with no appointed lawyer because his family is in no financial situation to take on the burdens of the costly expenses of a fair trial. Now, I say this because we all know that money buys you a better sentence. Bottom line.

Ok, so let's say Steven gets sentenced to just one year in jail, the judge is willing to go nice on him. Maybe he's got to do some community service which is good for everyone, and maybe the judge will want to tack on some probation time just for good measure. That's fine, there's nothing wrong with taking away some of his privileges and checking up on him for the crime he has caused.

My problem is with sending him to jail. And I know this from experience, the only thing jail is going to do to him is make him angry at the judicial system and turn him into a better criminal. He'll learn all sorts of new tricks in jail; spend some time with the "professionals" (sarcasm intended). But really, this will only turn him into more of a monster than when he goes in, I can guarantee that.

Now, on the topic of DXM abuse. I'll be straight forward and admit I've been using DXM containing pharmaceutical products for the past eight years. I would say that over the past five years, I've been using daily for the majority of that time span.

And this is where things go bad. Assumptions are made, false assumptions. It seems humans have this knack for binding up all sorts of "false assumptions" on any given topic; into their mind as "logic". I'm sure the word "DRUG" pops up into the mind upon the utterance of DXM. Drug is such an expansive term that somehow has been subtly conveyed to the masses through the media as a very narrow minded term. And by narrow minded I mean that it conveys one simple message above all, "drugs are bad".

Here's an analogy to sum up how I feel about that. Okay, you've got a dog and it does its dog duty on your brand new glimmering white carpet. Now I think most people would have a bit of anger well up in them at this point. Some would cope with it and others might curse or yell at the dog, but ultimately no one gives up on the dog right there and then. They don't just throw the dog back out into the wild saying
"You’re right darling; this darn dog just isn't working right. He's messing up our carpet and the only way we can deal with this issue is by removing him."

Okay, now that is admittedly not the BEST analogy in the world, but it seems to suffice. The main difference is that a dog has to "do his duty" in order to live, whereas a human has a choice whether or not they want to do drugs. But analogies exist for just that reason, as a

"Similarity between LIKE features of two things, on which a comparison may be based"
http://dictionary.reference.com/

The word "like" is used as in "similar" in this case. So my point is that hopefully you can gain some insight from this analogy rather than passing it off as heresy.

Basically what I'm implying by this analogy is that you can't just say "DXM is bad" and we should abolish it because it is "bad". Most of the population has never tried it so they are all relying on some of those "false assumptions" I was talking about earlier. You can pretend you know the drug is ultimately bad, but you don't really know because you've never done it.

Granted, one can make judgments from the effects they've seen from the substance. But I've found that most of the time people make judgments to fit they're own vision of what the drug should be. They fill in those little pieces they don't know about the drug with whatever they've been told by the latest D.A.R.E flyer they've seen, or commercial they heard on the radio about drugs being "bad'.

Well now we could get on a whole side topic about the crimes committed by users of drugs and all of that. How come no one focuses on the wars committed by SOBER people? I'm talking about wars here, people killing one another over beliefs. That's something that should be getting your attention. Instead of protesting drugs you should be protesting the politicians that deem it necessary for so many young men to die for a cause that a large amount of the population doesn't even believe in.

We need to start educating people the right way about these topics. I'm fed up with the whole anti-drug movement and the way it neglects to see the bigger picture so that it can get the task at hand done most efficiently. Now, that's kind of a vague statement, so let me elaborate.

I believe that if we worked on decriminalizing "drugs" than we would face a lot less of the consequences that we are seeing from the "War on Drugs" such as South American drug related deaths and pretty much any other death due to the protection of one's "God given rights".

A lot of these people wouldn't need guns if the federal agents weren't coming after them with guns. Follow the link below and you can read more about what I'm talking about.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/hornberger/horn...rnberger75.html

It's only a couple of paragraphs but it sums up very well the point that prohibition of alcohol equaled an increase in violence in the same way that illegalization of drugs is inducing a plethora of criminal activity.

A large portion of the money we spend on prisons and jails could be much more efficiently used on education and treatment programs for drugs. We need to stop feeding our kids lies and tell them the truth about drugs, only then can we tackle this problem head on. There has been too much evasion of the reality of drugs in our society that I think is the ultimate cause for our youths to rebel against the people that are supposedly trying to help them.

The psychology of the human is such that it can be predicted and roughly calculated. I think that we have a society that is run by a bunch of individuals that can't fully understand what goes on inside the mind of a drug addict and are inappropriately estimating the psychological consequences of decriminalization.

Oh, and this talk about

"America's Drug Habit Funds Terrorism"
http://www.dpna.org/

what is the point of saying this? How about this headline…

"Americas Oil Consumption Funds International Murder."
-Sam Hillis

Good, now we can all start buying environmentally friendly vehicles and end slow global warming and we don't even have to fund our "terror leader".

I want to do well for this country, that's my bottom line. I want to see an end to all this killing over all this childish behavior. that could so easily be avoided if so many people would take the time to inform themselves. And that's what I want to do. I am but one person, but I believe I can make a difference. There is so much potential in the drugs we use, if we could only learn to use them more safely and informatively. Knowledge truly is power.

One of the reasons I'm writing this article is because I feel that in some way, all this negativity about drugs hinders my ability to be productive. I spend a lot of time just wondering about what other people are thinking of me because I'm on drugs and how I'm interacting in society. I think that this negativity draws a lot of my brain power that could be utilized towards more beneficial purposes. If I wasn't always worrying about getting caught being high, I could spend more time helping out in the community. I could spend more time reading books that I want to read, or put more focus on being a positive person. But when you have that taboo of being a drug addict looming over your head, it's almost as if it changes you into what everyone wants you to be portrayed as, an evil lifeless stupid meaningless piece of trash. The more we instill these thoughts into our youths, the more they will become so. It's time to start taking responsibility for these issues and training our youths in proper drug use if they so choose to go down that road.

Everyone is allowed to make decisions in their lives. And I know a lot of anti-drug activists think that if everyone was doing drugs that our world would fall apart and everyone would be raping, pillaging and plundering and all of that nonsense. The truth is, we're humans and we ultimately have control over our actions. It's time that a lot of people start realizing this and stop acting so negatively towards drug users. It's all about the Karma. Whether you believe in it or not. If you punch a man in the face, chances are he'll punch you back. Stop punching DRUG USERS in the face; then they’ll throw a little respect your way.


In conclusion; Steven would be better suited to a treatment program or some counseling. This scenario would end up with less money spent by everyone (including us tax payers!!!), and more likely a Steven that is better adapted to society. Isn't the ultimate goal of all of this to make sure Steven doesn't "go bad"? Well, all I have left to say is that a dog doesn't get vicious because people treated him nicely.

[TheGreatDeceiver]

Bullshit. Nothing should happen to him. Fuck community service, fuck repayment. He has committed no crime in my eyes.

[eazyb]

Originally posted by Ownthink@May 29 2007, 02:20 PM
Bullshit. Nothing should happen to him. Fuck community service, fuck repayment. He has committed no crime in my eyes.

I agree! TEN YEARS for OTC? Damn, compared to the "illicit" drugs the sentencing is much lighter (maybe some probation and some time within a 12-Step religious cult...maybe that is as bad as prison).

It's stuff like this which makes me wonder why the majority of American citizens haven't bothered to deem the War On Some Drugs a failure. In the end this abuse by the system isn't going to do dick about convincing people to voluntarily do away with their vices.