The Miami Herald reports that in the same school district in Pensacola, Florida, that was unable to fire a cocaine-addled teacher because of a union contract, an honor student who found a bag containing a mix of prescription and non-prescription pills and was afraid to turn it in for fear of the school's strict zero-tolerance policy, was in fact expelled for drug possession when the school learned of the matter.

Reporting on the incident, the Pensacola News Journal relates that in 1998, 12-year-old Robert Starkie of Sims Middle School in Pace, Florida was expelled for drug possession because he briefly held a Ritalin pill. When a student on a school bus asked him to take something, Starkie held out his hand. When he saw it was a pill, he threw it out the window.

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