"The number 1 problem in schools right now"

Eric Owens writes at The Daily Caller,

Public school teachers and officials in Colorado say they are immensely concerned that large numbers of students are using lots of marijuana now that the drug is legal across the state.

The growing problem of dazed and confused students was a widely discussed issue among the 350 or so school officials, teachers and law enforcement officials who gathered at a Safe Schools Summit conference this week in Thornton, Colo., The Denver Post reports.

The Colorado School Safety Resource Center, the conference sponsor, specifically scheduled a panel on how marijuana legalization is affecting schools because many attendees had specifically requested it.

“It’s the No. 1 problem in schools right now,” Lynn Riemer, president of ACT on Drugs, told the Post.

...“It’s like they’re disguising alcohol as Kool-Aid and marketing it to kids,” Jeff Whitmore, a school transportation official in southwestern Colorado, told the newspaper. “These edibles are cookies and gummy bears, and they’re filled with high amounts of THC.”

Whitmore also suggested that some parents are to blame for the spike in student pot usage.

“Kids see their parents smoking it and see it marketed everywhere, and they think it’s normal and OK for them to do,” he told the Post.

Read more here.