Bracelets considered drug paraphernalia

Beaded bracelets or kandi are colorful bracelets that can be linked to raves and ecstasy. Because of their drug connotation the bracelets are catching the attention of the school administration.

   High school can often be associated with various events or qualities that come with it. Football, teenagers and homework are among the few. Another less-than-glamorous aspect is drugs.
   While not all students engage in this activity, there are the few that do. But how do you distinguish one student from another?
   Some attire is commonly acknowledged as including drug references, like clothing featuring a cannabis leaf.
   “Anything that is overt and explicit to drugs, if it’s obvious that it’s in reference to a drug, then it is not allowed on campus,” assistant principal Brent Mattix said. “That can be kind of tricky sometimes, because different things can take on different meanings.”
      But there are clothes or accessories in the gray area, that merely hint at drug innuendos, but are not enough alone to make a statement; for instance, colorful, plastic, beaded bracelets.
   These beaded bracelets, sometimes referred to as kandi, are one of the trademarks of raves or ecstasy.
   “What I’ve heard is that people are advertising thizzing, and that’s been on a couple of Web sites that we’ve seen throughout the years,” assistant principal Brian McNulty said. “So it’s not something that’s brand new it’s been – let’s just say an urban legend, for the past couple of years.”
   Ecstasy users can use the bracelets as a stimulant in various ways.
   “You’ll find, if you do the research, that there is a correlation between folks who wear color beaded bracelets with some drugs people take it accentuates the senses,” Mattix said. “It becomes a tactile thing, it’s something I can touch or feel, and it also has different colors, so I now have stimulation to my optical sense.”
   Although these candy bracelets are not new, administrators are still making sure that students are not wearing them to promote ecstasy or other drugs.
   “We don’t go around and pull (students wearing beaded bracelets) into the office and confiscate them,” Mattix said. “By itself, a bracelet doesn’t tell us that you’re a drug user, or go to raves, but if we see a couple things, then we try and bring it to the student’s attention.”
   However, in one student’s case, she said felt she was judged simply by her attire.
   “I bought this little-kid bracelet from Wal-Mart for like, three bucks, and it had different color beads, and I thought, ‘Oh that’s so sick,’ ‘cause that’s totally me, I like little-kid stuff.” GBHS senior Sarah Sciascia said. “I go to church and I’m Christian. And I definitely don’t do (drugs).”
   But once she entered the GBHS office, Sciascia said, things seemed to change.
   Sciascia said she was talked to by the assistant principals’ secretary, Debbie Nordman, about her bracelet. During the conversation, Sciascia said another adult came and spoke on her behalf and assured Nordman that Sciascia was not a student who would engage in drugs.
   “It’s hard because some teachers and people judge (other) people, even when it’s totally not them,” Sciascia said. “That’s totally not me at all, and I just got judged because of what I was wearing,” Sciascia said.
   Nordman said she regularly speaks with students in her role as the AP secretary, and that she never demeans or unfairly criticizes students. But, she does tell students that sometimes their attire has other meanings they might not be aware of.
   Because the bracelets are not directly drug-related, they are not against dress code policy; however, administrators do address the issue to keep the school safe.
   “I have never, ever told a student to take them off,” Nordman said. “Except for a couple kids on probation, because if they have them on and the probation officers come, they do get in trouble, and they take them off willingly.”
   Some students wear them innocently, but Nordman said a vast majority of students who sport them do so with drug references in mind.
   “People who wear the beads may very well be wearing them just because they want to fit into a certain trend or look. But that isn’t usually what we encounter,” Nordman said.
   Nordman has talked to students who have attended raves and worn them as well.
   “I know people who go to raves, and who have explained the whole kandi bracelet phenomenon to me,” Nordman said. “And we’ve had students who have decided to go drug free, come in to us after the fact, and have a conversation with me and they have said that that is absolutely what it means. And (they were) wearing it so other people on campus would know that ‘I like to party.’”
   For the administration, the problem is distinguishing a student wearing the beads as a fashion statement from the ones wearing them as a drug reference.
   “We don’t harass or bring people in because they have beads on. Some students just have no idea what they mean. So it’s not that we’re as an administrative staff judging people by what they wear, but if enough things match up, it definitely raises our suspicion and one of the things we have the obligation to act on is reasonable suspicion,” Mattix said. “So if we have enough things that are connected, that warrants a conversation with the students.”
   Despite the administration’s attempt to be fair, Sciascia is one of the students who feel she was unfairly judged.
   “They were just making a stereotype. (They thought) ‘Oh well, she’s wearing that bracelet so she totally does drugs and stuff,’” Sciascia said. “It’s hard, I had no idea it meant ecstasy. Nobody knew that, I told a bunch of my friends and they said ‘No way, I didn’t even know that.’”
   McNulty emphasizes that his primary concern is keeping the school safe, and that sometimes it warrants a conversation with a student.
   “I have the same conversation with young men who throw colors, more than young women, but if it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck then I usually think it’s a duck. And these are students that I care about,” McNulty said. “You’ve got to keep your school safe. Is my school safe? Are you safe? That’s my No.1 question.”
   Although not all students wear these beads intending to make drug references, the administration needs to be vigilant in order to keep everybody safe.
   “At school, liberties are a little bit different, and that’s where the gray area comes in, and where sometimes the bad feelings come. It’s about your guys’ safety, it’s about us trying to do that, and unfortunately there are connotations and correlations,” McNulty said.
   Sciascia thinks it’s hard, different things take on different meaning, and for those who aren’t engaged in drug-related activity, it’s hard to know what is and what isn’t appropriate.
   “Some people just don’t know, the bracelet was one of those things, I just thought it was cool looking,” Sciascia said.
   Although Sciascia said she felt unfairly judged, she understands that the administration does need to be careful of the drug innuendos.
   “I get that they need to be careful about that stuff, but at the same time step back a little and don’t be so critical,” Sciascia said.
   Regardless of the conflict, administrators try and keep the students’ well being as their first and foremost concern.
   “Our job is to talk to students and find out what is going on in their life so we can best support them,” Mattix said.

Photo credit: MAGGIE LOUIS