To Help or Not to Help--What are the Consequences?

What's happened to common sense? Seriously?

So recently, near Boston, a female high school student went to a party, where they were serving alcohol, when her friend called for a ride home. The cops showed up, kids that drank were ticketed, and then there were some (the girl in question) that didn't drink, but were warned they were going to get tickets for drinking just because they were there.

Find the article at CNN.com.

Here is where I have issues with all this:

• The cops on the scene made a statement that the girl was sober, and had not been drinking. Why did she have to get a ticket?
• Since she was ticketed, her school's Zero Tolerance policy kicked in and she was demoted as the Captain of the volleyball team and suspended 4-5 games. I don't believe Zero Tolerance policies work. There are too many situations that fall into the grey zone--like this case.
• She went to that party not to imbibe, and not to encourage others to be delinquent, but to help out a friend in a potentially dangerous situation. Now that this girl has been punished, what kind of message are we sending to other kids? Don't help out your friend, because you might get in trouble just for being there? That's horrible.

Kids will make stupid decisions, but this girl is obviously not one of them. If my girls were ever in the same situation, I would hope that they'd go help their friend. I don't want them to have to think twice about doing what their parents would think is right.

I hope the underage drinking charges are/were dropped. I hope that her school administrators change their policy and reverse her punishment. I hope that the adults dealing with our children will use their common sense instead of leaving things up to some black-and-white policy that ends up doing more harm than good.

That's my two cents.

Much Love,