Other recent examples of children on the receiving end of "zero tolerance" policies include a Maryland nine-year-old who was suspended for drawing a picture of a gun on a piece of paper in violation of his school's "anti-weapons" policy. In Kansas, a 7th grader was suspended for committing a "racially divisive" action - drawing a picture of a Confederate flag.

Ritalin is implicated in death of Michigan teen. A 14-year-old boy was pronounced dead at a local hospital after falling off his skateboard while playing with his cousins in the basement of his aunt's home. An autopsy performed by Oakland County Medical Examiner Ljubisa Dragovic revealed damage to the child's heart muscle and small blood vessels, though previous physicals had fail- ed to detect any heart disease. Dragovic's conclusion, as reported in the Oakland Press (4-14-00), was that 10 years of Ritalin use preceding the accident caused the boy's death, and that prolonged use of the "serious" stimulant medication methylphenidate (Ritalin) "can lead to catastrophe like this."