Medina County Sheriff Randy Brown states: “I want to start off by saying, I think that the schools do a tremendous job, but in any large group of people, you’re going to have a few who use drugs. It’s not the schools that are the problem, it’s the fact that our biggest treasures in our county are our kids in those schools…that’s what really tugs at your heart….
“So any amount of drugs in our schools is terrible, even if it’s just a small percentage of kids experimenting with drugs. I can’t say drugs in Devine are any worse than drugs in other schools, but for kids to be experimenting with meth, or the synthetic drugs like spice or bath salts is completely crazy, because their first time could easily be their last time to do anything. Or the first time could easily lead to a lifetime of addiction.
“These kind of cases involving our youth are difficult, because we are certainly not out to make an example of young kids experimenting with drugs, or trying to ruin their lives, but we want them to understand that there is no future in drugs. We don’t want to see them in the funeral home a few years from now. These kids in our schools are our future.
“Many years ago, meth took the place of cocaine because it’s so easily available. There are plenty of big, super labs in Mexico bringing across to the US. It clears from your system quicker than marijuana, for example, when using certain drug tests, but there is a test that can be done that will show more of a complete history of a person’s use of drugs I believe.
“It does surprise me that any young person would be experimenting with meth or synthetic drugs, or whatever new drug might be out there that we aren’t even aware of yet. We’ve seen kids huffing air wick, Freon from a/c units, and I don’t know how to get it across to them, but they are ruining their lives.
“I have seen it happen before several years ago…a good kid experimented with drugs and got into a lot of trouble, and it was his first time to use a synthetic man-made drug called spice.
“I have seen good people get addicted to meth, and watched it ruin their lives. They get to a point where they walk around like zombies….You can spot a meth user from a mile away if you know what you are looking for, and eventually addicts choose meth over their kids and their families. It’s really sad.”
