Police suspect child ate drugged brownie at Tobago school

Tobago Police are actively investigating an incident at a secondary school in Tobago, after it was reported that a student was injured at home after she consumed a marijuana brownie at the school last Friday.

Speaking on the Tobago Updates morning show on Monday, Sgt Jordan Joseph said the report was currently being actively investigated.

“A student at a school came home and sometime later fell off the home balcony. Initially, it was considered a suicide attempt, but due to further investigations, it was understood that this child was given brownie at school and came home and was hallucinating.

"So probably, they thought they were in a space that doesn’t exist. So that person would have had some injuries.”

He said, with this being the second week of school, there were students who were entering the secondary school environment after having just left primary school. He added that secondary schools were more mature environments.

“We have peer pressure. They want to be part of this. These things come sometimes with risk and unfortunate instances.”

He added: "We may be offered things that we may accept, but the drawback to that is that drugs affect persons differently.

"Accepting things from persons – drink, food – you must be very particular and do not engage yourself in drugs that are not prescribed to you by a doctor.

"It is one of the simplest ways to safeguard yourself when it comes to any kind of drug use.”

He said officers would continue to do their parts in the fight against teenage drug use as part of the police's anti-drug programme but he said parents, teachers and social workers also needed to pay attention to the behaviour of students.

Speaking with Newsday on Monday, TT Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA) Tobago Officer Bradon Roberts said such incidents were not new to secondary schools across the island as he called for a strengthening of the moral education system.

“We are too focused on core content areas and the curriculum in that regard, and we’re not getting much of the moral education done.

"We always speak to reform of education to make it meaningful, but the conversation doesn’t seem to be going anywhere so persons like me will have to continue to advocate for it."

He said TTUTA needed to find different strategies to reach those with the power to really initiate the change.

"This is just being highlighted now but we need to be able to educate our parents. Some of our parents are having that challenge speaking to their children.

"So the collaboration between school and home and the business sector, we’ve been calling for those things for a very long time. And unless we help each other as fellow citizens (and) as neighbours, some persons are going to struggle and some persons are going to suffer.”

He added: “There needs to be an intervention and it comes from collaboration. We need to know who are the parents that need the assistance. We need to have trustworthy forums where persons who need help can come froward and get that help, so advocacy really.

"That is what TTUTA has to continue doing, advocating for some of these things to be put in place.

"But some of our children, they are misguided, and we have to be able to capture them before they get to that point where they are doing some of the silly things where you wonder how they reached to that point.”