Pubdate: Fri, 30 Aug 2002
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2002 Globe Newspaper Company
Contact:  http://www.boston.com/globe/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52
Author: Greg Toppo, Associated Press

DRUG POLICY EMPHASIZES TREATMENT

WASHINGTON - The federal drug control policy director is urging schools to 
offer help to students who use drugs, not just toss them out. Guidelines in 
a report released yesterday by the Office of National Drug Control Policy 
urge treatment and counseling for drug-using high schoolers rather than 
simply suspending or expelling them. ''The goal is to say we believe we can 
do a better job of making kids healthy,'' said John P. Walters, director of 
the office. Kicking students out of school without treatment can create 
''drug-using dropouts,'' an even bigger problem, the report said. The 
advice challenges policies in many districts that automatically suspend or 
expel students caught with drugs.

The new policy was announced a day after the agency released a separate 
report in Miami showing a decline in first-time marijuana users last year. 
While that study found that fewer adolescents are first-time marijuana 
users than in previous years, it said those who are risk succumbing to 
long-term drug addiction. ''Marijuana is not the soft drug,'' Walters said. 
He said government, community agencies, and parents must marshal their 
powers to prevent and treat marijuana abuse.

According to the study, 62 percent of cocaine users age 26 or older were 
first-time marijuana users by the age of 14. The idea that marijuana leads 
to harder drugs was challenged by the National Organization for the Reform 
of Marijuana Laws, based in Washington, which said that only 1 out of every 
104 first-time marijuana users ever uses heroin or cocaine.

While the study released yesterday provides guidelines for handling student 
drug users, final decisions on what to do remain in the hands of school 
districts.

Dan Langan, an Education Department spokesman, said, ''The guide is a tool 
and it's a helpful tool, but how a district and a school choose to 
implement any recommendations in the guide is up to them.'' Kathleen Lyons, 
spokeswoman for the National Education Association, said her group would 
back the new guidelines. ''That's what we would endorse - helping kids, not 
simply punishing them,'' she said. ''It doesn't do anybody any good just to 
take a drug test and kick the kid out of school - where's he going to go? 
It doesn't solve anyone's problem and may in fact worsen it.'' The Supreme 
Court ruled 5-4 in June that schools can require students to submit to drug 
tests before participating in competitive after-school activities, even if 
they have no particular reason to suspect wrongdoing. Drug tests had been 
allowed previously just for student athletes.
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