The province's decision to close the purse strings on the study of student drug use and addiction is an injustice not only to young people who participate in it but to parents and caregivers across the Island.
It's sad when the wellbeing of young peoples' futures is influenced by dollars and cents.
This isn't just a study of young drug users, it also covers the purchase of lottery tickets and even sex among teenagers.
An Eastern Graphic story from last summer shows the number of suspensions among students at Montague High School had risen dramatically over the previous three years and the school had the highest rate in the Eastern School District.
If it needs to be spelled out to the people in control of the study's financing this means Montague High isn't the only school that is dealing with the issue.
To quote figures from that newspaper report: Montague High suspended four students in 2008 for drug infractions. That number increased to 13 in 2009 and again in 2010 when 24 students were removed from the school for the same reason.
So is that a problem?
You bet it is if you're the parent who gets a call from the school telling you your child has been dismissed for a period of time for not only breaking the law but potentially putting their lives and others at risk.
It's a problem if you're a taxpayer and a portion of your money goes toward rehabilitation for an individual whose issue with drugs could and should have been addressed years earlier.
It's a problem when family's lives are taxed and maybe even torn apart because one of its members has resorted to crime to feed an addiction or in the worst case scenario the family member lies, steals and injures loved ones because they are out of control.
To even conceive the notion that drugs don't exist among teens in our Island communities is naive, abominable and lacks all social conscience.
For the same time period three students at Souris High had been suspended and two students in Morell.
One student suspension for drug related charges is too many.
Schools in other counties are not exempt either. Bluefield High School had the highest rate with 10.6 drug-related suspensions per 100 students. Colonel Gray had 4.7 and 4.3 suspensions were handed out to Charlottetown Rural students over a three-year period.
The survey in jeopardy is done every few years and the last one was conducted in 2007 with 3,000 Island teenagers participating.
A 2012 study is out of the question, according to a provincial epidemiologist Dr Carolyn Sanford because it costs $50,000 to $60,000 and the money just won't be there.
No resources. No study. Students lose. We all lose.
Never mind though, government has a Plan B. It will use data from other sources, including Statistics Canada to fill the gap. The only problem is Statistics Canada surveys only about 300 students - 10 per cent fewer than were surveyed five years ago.
Where's the logic in cutting back something this valuable?
There is none.
And it costs nothing for the province to bury its head in the sand.
Heather Moore is editor of The Eastern Graphic. She can be reached at editor@peicanada.com