Laxative-laced cupcakes send students home sick

Thursday, February 12, 2004

Nine students went home ill Wednesday from R.O. Hawkins Junior High School after they were given cupcakes laced with laxatives by classmates. The students responsible, two ninth-grade girls, were suspended for five days for disrupting the school, said principal Dennis Parham. About a dozen students were given cupcakes, most of them friends of the girls who made them. Under the school discipline policy, Parham said the punishment could have been more severe. "They thought it was a joke," he said. Parham said he heard from several parents, most of them concerned whether laxatives were the only thing the cupcakes were laced with. "To the best of my knowledge, that's all it was," he said. "One of the girl's mothers was there when they were making the cupcakes, and she couldn't believe that they'd done it. But they said they did."

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