The (Bad) Boys on the Bus

Katherine Mangu-Ward | October 25, 2007

The bad kids in the back of the bus are now getting blamed for the bad grown-up in the front of the bus' drug test results.

A Bradenton bus driver might be losing her job for failing a urine test, which showed that she had smoked marijuana. And she's blaming the students.

Rosemary Pevy says that any marijuana in her system could only have come from students who were smoking at the bus stop or on her bus.

Kicker:

Pevy has not been driving for the school district since the failed drug test, which resulted from her involvement in a traffic accident.

In other news, the Bong Hits 4 Jesus case is being turned into a major motion picture.

Comments

|10.25.07 @ 4:36PM|#

Unfortunately for this bus driver the WODs won't swallow the bilge water over second hand smoke the quaff over at the War On Truth Tobacco. Sitting in rooms filled with smoke so dense you can't see from one end to the other for hours a a time doesn't expose you to a fraction of one drag inhaled directly into your lungs.

|10.25.07 @ 4:49PM|#

In other news, the Bong Hits 4 Jesus case is being turned into a major motion picture TV movie for the 9 PM Thursday slot.

Corrected it for you.

|10.25.07 @ 4:49PM|#

She's lying. But if I were on a jury, I'd say I believed her. ;-) ;-)

|10.25.07 @ 4:51PM|#

The Replacements doing Kiss Me On The Bus.

Festus|10.25.07 @ 4:58PM|#

My sister is tested regularly; she works in the liquor distribution industry. They swab her cheek. She told me that in order to test positive, she'd have to spend 4 hours in a closet full of non-stop smoking potheads. My reply -- what a wonderful place to be!

lunchstealer|10.25.07 @ 5:04PM|#

In other news, the Bong Hits 4 Jesus case is being turned into a major motion picture TV movie for the 9 PM Thursday slot.

I always figured they'd put it on SciFi, with a big CGI'd supreme court justice unearthed by unwary villagers in a remote Alaska town, picking off the townsfolk one by one. I can just see the ads "Alitosaurus! A SciFi original movie, this Saturday at 9, on the Most Dangerous Night of Television®"

|10.25.07 @ 5:05PM|#

I prefer Soul Coughing's Bus To Beelzebub, which seems quite appropriate for this story.

|10.25.07 @ 5:06PM|#

Rosemary Pevy says that any marijuana in her system could only have come from students who were smoking at the bus stop or on her bus.

I know this is kind of obvious, but...

She lets the students smoke pot on the bus?!?

She must have gone to the O.J. Simpson Institute for Stupid Alibis.

Episiarch|10.25.07 @ 5:11PM|#

Are they sure it wasn't Otto driving the bus?

|10.25.07 @ 5:15PM|#

Has the concept of "positive" been set at a specific ppm or does "positive" move with the improved sensitivity of the tests? The reason that this is relevant is that while the closet full of potheads may have been necessary 10 years ago, maybe the bus full of potheads is enough today.

I think that it is more likely that she deliberately ingested it herself or she unwittingly ate some of Alice B's brownies, but someday the tests are going to be sensitive enough to easily detect second hand exposure. Does anybody trust the drug warriors to set a ppm level so that the tests don't register "positive" for environmental exposure?

|10.25.07 @ 5:17PM|#

She lets the students smoke pot on the bus?!?

Considering what it's like on most school buses, I can appreciate the kids' need for something to help them relax and the drivers' willingness to allow anything which will calm the little sobs down.

She lets the students smoke pot on the bus?!?

Festus|10.25.07 @ 5:23PM|#

"Has the concept of "positive" been set at a specific ppm or does "positive" move with the improved sensitivity of the tests? The reason that this is relevant is that while the closet full of potheads may have been necessary 10 years ago, maybe the bus full of potheads is enough today."

It's not a positive/negative test. It's more like parts-per-million with a pre-determined number of parts considered to be okay.

B|10.25.07 @ 5:24PM|#

She is almost certainly lying. The tests aren't that sensitive. And if she were telling the truth, it would mean that there was a hell of a lot of pot smoking going on on her bus, which gets her out of the frying pan and into the other, larger, hotter frying pan.

I sincerely hope she didn't come up with this defense under the advice of an attorney.

|10.25.07 @ 5:30PM|#

Rimfax,
The problem with where to set the ppm isn't about secondhand smoke, it's that you can pop positive two weeks after getting high. But that's where the WOD has taken us. If you've ever ever ever, even once, smoked a joint, then you can't be trusted to drive our precious children, or go to college. You can be trusted to carry an M-16 and fire artillery. You can even be President, but only if you didn't inhale.

Festus|10.25.07 @ 5:41PM|#

"If you've ever ever ever, even once, smoked a joint, then you can't be trusted to drive our precious children, or go to college. You can be trusted to carry an M-16 and fire artillery."

Which is why my friend (name redacted) choses to work for European-based companies. No piss tests.

|10.25.07 @ 5:53PM|#

Depending on your metabolism and the amount of body fat you have. You can test positive for THC if you smoked within a month, sometimes more. This means that if someone gets in an accident and then tests positive for THC because they smoked weeks ago, they can be charged with DUI. that's where those crazy statistics about how many accidents are caused by marijuana come from. 1 in 3 people smoke weed, so 1 in three accidents are caused by weed. Perfect drug warrior logic.

duster|10.25.07 @ 6:27PM|#

The bus driver is correct in blaming 'the children', though not how she's making it out to be. Drug warriors are always saying the WOD is necessary for 'the children'. She is being oppressed due to a drug war policy. Therefore, she is being oppressed because of 'the children'.

Lying to protect yourself from drug war bullshit is the right thing to do. Too bad her lie wasn't good enough.

|10.25.07 @ 6:39PM|#

You can even be President, but only if you LIE!

|10.25.07 @ 7:03PM|#

I'm considering making a citizen's arrest of the previous poster for impersonating the President. He is Commander-in-Chief, so it's like impersonating a general, but not sure how I can make an arrest online.

If I were her, I would get a prescription for medical marijuana ASAP. She must have something wrong with her that a little pot could alleviate.

technomist|10.25.07 @ 7:25PM|#

Presumably she's taken a test since she stopped drivnig?

The bus driver in question|10.25.07 @ 7:38PM|#

I know they were smoking weed. I saw them doing it when I went to one of them to buy my crack.

Nigel Watt|10.25.07 @ 8:09PM|#

I'm glad the wonderful phrase "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" will be around a little while longer.

|10.25.07 @ 8:12PM|#

No possibility of a false positive on the test?

|10.25.07 @ 8:33PM|#

I'm considering making a citizen's arrest of the previous poster for impersonating the President. He is Commander-in-Chief, so it's like impersonating a general, but not sure how I can make an arrest online.

You get him to open this link.

Then read him his rights.

|10.25.07 @ 8:35PM|#

No possibility of a false positive on the test?

Nah. Crime labs and drug testing firms are like the pontiff. Infallible.

dhex|10.25.07 @ 11:32PM|#

i was kinda hopin' this would go more like "man the kids were so crazy i had to smoke weed just to calm down."

|10.26.07 @ 12:52AM|#

. . . or go to college. You can be trusted to carry an M-16 and fire artillery. You can even be President, but only if you didn't inhale.


Today you could only be President.

|10.26.07 @ 1:55AM|#

This is the result of people NOT STANDING UP AND REFUSING to take these total invasions of privacy. I know people need a job, but what is your honor and dignity worth? Some job, which may be outsourced a month or year from now? When are people going to say enough of this bs?

The war on some drugs is the new inquisition on the bad ol' hippies for ruining the Vietnam War and having such a great time during the 70's. In your face drug warriors, you will never win and the 70's were freakin' awesome.

|10.26.07 @ 8:18AM|#

Sitting in rooms filled with smoke so dense you can't see from one end to the other for hours a a time doesn't expose you to a fraction of one drag inhaled directly into your lungs.

Warren, when you are sneering at the hyperbole of anti-smoking activists, you might want to be a bit less hyperbolic

jgray|10.26.07 @ 11:21AM|#

Some job, which may be outsourced a month or year from now

where are they going to outsource driving a schoolbus to?

rooms filled with smoke so dense you can't see from one end to the other

parse, for some that's not really hyperbole

|10.26.07 @ 12:31PM|#

rooms filled with smoke so dense you can't see from one end to the other

parse, for some that's not really hyperbole

jgray, do you really think if you sat in such a room for hours, you wouldn't be exposed to a fraction of one drag inhaled directly? (Think about the meaning of the word "fraction" before you answer.)