TUCSON, Ariz. — As nine-year-old fourth grade student at Renaissance Academy Paisley Midkiff walked into her classroom, she caught the usual whiff of smoke, a combination of cigarette and marijuana smoke.
You would think someone was smoking in the classroom because the smell is so strong, but that’s not the case.“Since our door is right next to the smoke shop door, sometimes they’ll come in and mistaken it,” she said about the casual person wandering into the school’s lobby. “All right so this is the classroom. Oh ya you can definitely smell it. For sure,” Christiansen commented.“They use it as a reason why they can’t focus on their work….and I don’t blame them,” she said.
Right in front of the school, she showed Christiansen tin foil on the ground. She said people who patron the smoke shop use the foil to smoke harder drugs like crack cocaine.She said last winter when the smoke shop moved next door from across the same center, crimes went up. They cited the Smoke Free Arizona Act, which doesn’t let people smoke within 20 feet of any entrance.