Students recruited to harvest pot: principal
In Soviet Russia, it was a tradition that students took time off from their studies to help bring in the harvest. In an inefficient command economy, producers rarely had the means to quickly and efficient harvest their crops, so large numbers of students could go a long ways in helping to bring in the harvest before the crops could be damaged or ruined by the weather.
Of course, not having much in the way of a distrubution system, a good portion of Soviet harvests rotted at railheads for lack of available transportation. Still, the government could trumpet the sacrifices of students as the stuff of Heroes of Soviet Labor.
Taking a page from the Soviets, students in Quebec are doing much the same thing, though it is hardly for altruistic reasons or reasons of political conviction.
Claude Bernier says the teenagers he’s talking about are not smoking pot—they’re being hired by drug dealers to cut it down. Bernier estimates at least 20 students at Jean-Nicolet high school are spending more time sneaking around in corn fields than they are studying in classrooms. He says the teenagers have told him that missed time picking pot is worth the money. Students report earning between $20 and $30 an hour harvesting marijuana at illegal plantations, far more than they would make working in local stores.
Maurice Richard, the mayor of Becancour, says employers who hire students are feeling the effect. “It’s easier than working at the grocery store for $7 or $8 an hour,” he says. Bernier says he worries some students who are helping to harvest the plants will get more involved. He says unless parents and police crack down now, growers will convince students to do other work in the drug trade once the harvest is over.
I can understand the financial incentives behind the decisions made by the students. What I’m wondering about, though, is how this is going to look on a resume?
