New York kids are getting a higher education these days.
Students in the Big Apple are regularly waking and baking before class — with The Post catching teens toking up outside schools in the morning and teachers reporting rampant use of the drug in the buildings.
“They come in sluggish or sleepy. Their eyes are red. Sometimes you can smell it, too,” said one exasperated teacher at August Martin High School in Queens.
“It’s not good for learning. They can’t learn if they are high?”
The problem has gotten so bad that Mayor Eric Adams highlighted it in the “State of Our Schools” address last Wednesday – saying that pot use is worse with the rampant spread of illegal cannabis stores in every city neighborhood.
“A few blocks from here on their way to school we are selling cannabis in the stores where they come in high every day,” Adams said in the speech.
Incidents involving illegal drugs, drug paraphernalia, alcohol and unauthorized use of possession of controlled substances or prescription medications are more common, too – they increased 17% in the 2022-2023 school year compared to the year before, according to city officials.
The Post observed teens gathering to take tokes of marijuana before school last week and many students said it is common to see kids coming in high and smoking vape pens in the buildings.
“They vape all the time. Everybody knows that. They go in the bathroom in groups,” said one 11th-grader at the August Martin school, which is in South Jamaica, Queens.
Plastic vapes make it easy for students to sneak the devices in and past metal detectors, many said.
“I’ve never seen them smoking but I’ve seen them coming to school high,” said one junior of her stoned peers. “It’s like almost all the time. But you mostly see it on Fridays. It’s the end of the week, people are stressed out.”
A teacher headed into the building said that it’s high schoolers of all grades, even freshman, coming to school high.
“It’s against our school policy so they get in trouble,” she said.
And it’s not just a wake and bake for some students, but mid-day smoke sessions as well, said one 11th-grade teacher at the school.
Kids come to class sluggish, sleepy and stinking, he said.
On Friday, students near Excelsior Prep High School in Springfield Gardens, Queens, were blazing up before class.
“I’ve been smoking [marijuana] for three years now,” said one senior who had a rolled joint in his hand. “I usually smoke one before school.”
“I’m a smart kid,” he added. “It doesn’t stop me from learning.”
A group of boys gathered to puff and pass on a street away from the school that morning. They finished up, chugged some water and headed toward the school. They claimed they would never bring it inside the building.
Other students had more responsible takes on smoking pot.
“I see it but I don’t drink or smoke,” said one senior. “I want to go to trade school to learn plumbing or to be an electrician … So I’m not going to get into that.”
Others have tried pot and passed on the drug.
“I tried it before but I don’t [smoke] anymore,” said one junior. “I don’t trust it because I don’t know what people be putting into it.”
Officials have warned of marijuana being laced with the deadly drug fentanyl, which students fear, and some expressed concerns over other drugs being laced with the flesh-eating “zombie drug” sedative known as tranq.
One junior said he buys his ganja off the streets because he doesn’t trust the new shops. Five to $10 gets him as much as he needs to burn Monday and Friday.
“It makes sense to space it out that far so you don’t get addicted,” he said.
“There’s so many of these shops around now and there doesn’t seem to be any real enforcement,” said Naveed Hasan, a Harlem parent and member of the education council group for District 2 in Manhattan. “Then I see kids in playgrounds rolling joints.”
State lawmakers last month introduced legislation that would require anyone under 21 caught smoking pot to attend a cannabis diversion program along with their parents.