Opelika children do ‘the right thing’

Donathan Prater
Staff Writer

Published: October 6, 2008

What started out as child’s play turned out to be no laughing matter for one group of Opelika children Sunday afternoon.

That’s when Hunter Adams, 11, and a group of friends, discovered a small bag of marijuana in the parking lot of Moore Stadium in Opelika.

Hunter, a fifth-grader at Northside Elementary, and the friends immediately took what they’d found to a friends’ mother, Christy Daniel.

“The children, who were all together, brought the bag of marijuana to me and said ‘Mom/Ms. Christy, we think we found a bag of drugs,’” said Daniel, who then notified authorities.

That’s exactly what they’d found, according to Opelika Police Chief Allan Elkins.

“It indeed appears to be a small quantity of marijuana these children found,” Elkins. “They turned the drugs right over to an adult, which was the right thing to do.”

Daniel, a mother of four - three of which were playing with the group that day - agrees.

“They (the children) were only afraid because their fingerprints were on the bag and they were afraid of getting in trouble,” said Daniel, adding that her children knew what to do in that situation because of family discussions about the dangers of drugs and programs like D.A.R.E. (Drug and Abuse Resistance Education).

Still, Daniel said she’s proud of all the children who were playing in the Moore Stadium parking lot that day.

“I know drugs are in the community. They’re everywhere,” she said. “We can’t be naive and not think they aren’t in Opelika; however, we must continue to educate our children about the dangers of drugs and hopefully they’ll make the right choice if someone offers them a chance to try them.”

The drugs will eventually be destroyed, Elkins said.