FIRST PLACE, Grades 4-6 Division, 2006
SAQUONTE WILKINSON
Grade 6, Prospect Learning Center
Picture this. It is a bright sunny April day around 2:00 pm. All of the kids are out of school because it is Saturday and they are on their way to the Benning Parks Playground. The children of all ages rush in to play their favorite games; kickball, baseketball, hopscotch, baseball, soccer and jump rope. Wow, everyone is having so much fun! Then all of a sudden a teenager walks over to the wall on the playground. I wonder what he is going to do? Some other teenagers follow him. Then they picked up what looked like trash or a newspaper off the ground and then they pulled out some drugs! Yuk! They used the dirty newspaper to roll their “weed.” Then they begin smoking the drugs in front of the children standing and playing around the recreational center.
I think it is an injustice for drug dealers to roam the streets of American soil and use and sell drugs. The drug dealers will sell drugs to kids by pretending that the drugs are candy. For example, they buy a candy bar, throw the candy away, but keep the wrapper. Then they shape the weed like a candy bar and wrap it back in the candy wrapper. Next they sell the candy to children. Then children buy the candy not knowing that they are buying weed. By the time that the kids discover that they have been tricked, the kids run back, but the drug dealer is gone.
The drug dealers are making children dig their own graves because many of them then start experimenting and using drugs. The children don’t know what they are doing. They think that is fun to do drugs. They don’t realize that they are destroying their brains and bodies and this may be causing them to die.
I believe that parents have to help protect their children any way they can. Children should be supervised when they are playing on the playground by people who love and care for them. They should also be escorted to the stores so parents can see what they are buying. I know that parents are concerned about their children, but they must do a better job of protecting them from drug dealers. Parents must remember to talk to their children about the dangers of drugs. Always remember that children are the greatest treasures of life and we must protect them from the injustices of drug dealers.