Laguna Niguel Outrage Over Elementary Drug Program

A handful of parents whose 5th-graders attended Laguna Niguel Elementary school’s drug awareness program are angered by a short YouTube video showing youngsters smoking salvia. According to some of the parents, there was no opt-out option to take their children out of the program–saying that if there was, they would have exercised their option to do so.

Orange County Sheriff’s Department were aiming to educate the students on the dangers of smoking substances such as salvia and to show how it affects users by way of how the video depicted the kids reacting to the drug. The children in the video appear to be teens who smoked salvia with a water-pipe. Two of the girls in the video appeared to use profanity and had difficulty standing and speaking.

Amidst the disagreement between the agency and the parents, some of the critics of the video fear that it represented more of a “how-to” clip rather than drawing awareness.