STRAIGHT TALK OFFERED ON DRUGS IN SCHOOLS

"Malignant neglect has created an environment where every child in America
will be required to make a conscious choice whether to use drugs before
graduating from high school, in large measure because drugs will be
available -- and offered -- to them at the schools they attend."

With that grim assessment, the National Center on Addiction and Substance
Abuse begins a detailed examination of substance abuse in the nation's
schools. Very little in it is encouraging.

Based on six years of surveys of students and teachers, the report
concludes that 60 percent of high school students and 30 percent of middle
school students attend schools "where illegal drugs are used, kept and sold."

One in three high school students say people smoke and drink at their
schools, though only one in 20 principals acknowledges as much. Asked if
their school grounds are drug free, two out of three students said no and
nine in 10 principals said yes.

Generally, schools take two approaches to drugs. The first is to use
general anti-drug curriculum materials, such as D.A.R.E. The other is "zero
tolerance" policies on substance abuse. Typically, this means one strike
and you're out of school. It's a dramatic way of eliminating a problem; it
may or may not be a deterrent.

Significantly, the CASA research found that zero tolerance policies are
usually not accompanied by systematic drug treatment or counseling aimed at
preparing the offender for readmission. That is a crucial shortcoming.

Reliable evidence of success with drug education curricula is rare. In most
cases, evaluations have been done by the designers of the programs and lack
objectivity. Independent assessments of the long-established and expensive
D.A.R.E. programs, which operate in more than half of U.S. school systems,
have found no measurable lasting effect.

All of which is not to say this problem is a failure of schools. The CASA
report makes a big point of saying that school administrators and teachers
are responsible for keeping schools drug-free, but the rest of the burden
falls elsewhere. Breaking the cycle of youth substance abuse is mainly the
responsibility of parents.

Educators can do better by making schools smaller, with fewer opportunities
for kids to fall through the cracks. They can redirect money from
ineffective drug curricula to counseling and behavior modification aimed at
substance abusers or those at high risk.

Parents can do better simply by knowing where their children are and what
they are doing. Equally important, they can convey a much stronger message
that substance abuse is not tolerable.

There is no magic solution. But close attention to and high expectations
for every child are the places to begin.