NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCMH/AP) – A mix of sugar and Kool-Aid known as “happy crack” has landed some young Dorchester County students in trouble.

The Post and Courier reports that nine students at North Charleston’s Eagle Nest Elementary School were suspended after they were caught with the saccharine powder last week.

The school told parents the children violated school policy, which states, “No student will market or distribute any substance which is substantially similar in color, size or shape to any controlled substance. Further, any substance that simply looks like an illegal substance will be treated as one.”

All of the students were facing expulsion, but the offenses have been reduced to suspensions.

Parents of the suspended children told WCIV-TV they had no idea of the policy in the district’s handbook and neither did their children.

“I didn’t even know what ‘happy crack’ was so the way she called me, I thought my son died,” one parent told WCIV-TV. “She said there’s this epidemic going on at school, and I’m like ‘oh my gosh, what’s going on? Happy crack, what is that?’ So, I Googled it. I’m like, ‘Kool-Aid and sugar, are you serious?’ I was appalled. I was floored. I really thought it was a joke, I didn’t think it would go to this extent, that kids would get put out of school for Kool-Aid and sugar.”

District spokeswoman Pat Raynor says privacy laws prevented her from saying whether the students were eating, selling or distributing the substance.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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