We know it's an easy hit in some schools. Teachers suspect it's for sale, students have admitted it. Drugs in packsacks and public school lockers, weapons too, for that matter, breed social and criminal problems. In Canada, strict constitutional rules require that before searching a person, a police officer must have a warrant and reasonable grounds for doing so. Does the same order apply to our teachers and principals? No, says Canada's top court. In a remarkably sane decision yesterday, eight of nine judges said school officials may apply more lax, flexible standards when deciding whether to search a pupil. [continues 356 words]
Who Really Benefits From Drugs Given To Hyperactive Children? A WEEK ago, a panel of experts met in Washington DC to hammer out a consensus on one of the most extraordinary drug phenomena of our time---the massive surge in the use of Ritalin to treat children with attention deficit disorder and the related attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The statistics are staggering. Since 1990, the number of American children and adu]ts thought to be taking drugs for these conditions has leapt sevenfold and now stands at around 4 million. In some schools, 15 per cent of children are diagnosed as having ADD or ADHD, and regular Ritalin handouts have become a daily feature of classroom life. And while other countries have yet to embrace the drug with quite such enthusiasm, some are heading the same way. In Britain, the number of Ritalin prescriptions is doubling every year. [continues 631 words]
