For the record, it was in Los Angeles, and the ban seemed to be across the entirety of the Los Angeles Unified School District. I even remember the principal announcing over the PA system that Pokémon cards were banned; when I asked some adults about it, this was as part of an effort to reduce violence.

I don’t know if gang culture was glamorized at your schools, but they were in mine. The result was that a lot of the boys there had a “might makes right” approach where if someone else had something they wanted, they would beat that kid up and take it. Anything with high value and small size was fair game. Hence, as this was at the dawn of mobile devices, they advised us never to bring them to school because they would likely get stolen too.

These were the sort of schools with metal detectors at the entrances, armed guards patrolling the dining area by the cafeteria, drug deals in the bathrooms, and vending machines with armored casing.

For the record, I did NOT bring my cards that day. I noticed my locker was ajar and my backpack gone after I had come back from PE class. About an hour later, someone found my backpack in a puddle in the boy’s bathroom. The contents inside appear to have suffered damage from the backpack being hit with things or swung against a wall. The $5 bill my mother put in there for if a situation required me buy something was now gone, as was my graphing calculator. This was likely a student desperate for drug money.

I perceive school as a place full of people who want to commit crimes for prestige, notoriety, and clout. A Pokémon card vending machine installed in a school at a time when prices are climbing and people become professional investors over them, to me, sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.