Lee County Deputies found marijuana inside the backpacks of two students; one in middle school, and one in elementary school.
A Sheriff's Office incident report reveals at Lexington Middle School, pot was found inside a students backpack, in a sock, hiding in an empty deodorant case. The principal of Lexington Middle was tipped off by another student that he was going to sell the pot to a friend.
"They'd be in some serious trouble! They'd be in some serious trouble," Dawn Papp, a Lee County parent, said.
The other student attended Pelican Elementary in Cape Coral.
James Byrom, a recovered addict, is the founder of a rehab program in Charlotte County. He said the troubling trend of seeing drugs in schools, while shocking, isn't uncommon, and it starts at home.
"It's a learned behavior. It's very possible it could be just nothing more than 'monkey see, monkey do,'" Byrom said.
"Maybe the child got it from an older sibling? They could have even got it from their parents," Papp said.
"Who told them it was OK to be doing what they were doing? Somebody had to give them permission, and if you don't catch that part of the problem, it's going to happen again," Byrom said.
He said kids like the ones mentioned in these incidents could potentially be future addicts.
Both the elementary and middle school students were issued civil citations, but Papp said that's not enough.
"That's not punishing them. That's not going to affect the kid. The kids going to be like 'no big deal,'" Papp said. "Hopefully the parents of the child won't just blow it of."
