COCAINE FOUND ON LOCAL HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

The discovery of a student with cocaine at Ysleta High School
earlier this year is part of ongoing concerns over drugs in El Paso schools.

Cocaine is far less common than marijuana, but the powerful
stimulant has been discovered on campuses at least a dozen times
this academic year, school district officials said.

"The districts don't have a drug problem. The drug problem is a
community problem," said Victor Araiza, interim chief for the El
Paso Independent School District Police Department.

EPISD has had five cocaine cases this year and the Socorro
Independent School District has had six, officials said. Figures
weren't available for the Ysleta Independent School District.

In January, an El Paso police officer assigned to Ysleta High School
arrested an 18-year-old student on campus with less than a gram of
cocaine, what's considered a personal-use amount, police spokesman
Javier Sambrano said.

In December, a 17-year-old woman was caught with 36 plastic baggies,
or 13 grams, of cocaine at the El Paso Job Corps Center campus.

In March 2006, 12 seventh-grade students allegedly had cocaine at
Garcia-Enriquez Middle School in San Elizario.

Despite those examples, El Paso police and juvenile court
prosecutors said they had seen neither an increase nor a decrease in
cocaine use among teens.

The national 2006 Monitoring the Future survey found that 8.5
percent of 12th-graders reported using cocaine in their lifetime,
the Office of National Drug Control Policy stated.

Powdered cocaine was "fairly easy" or "very easy" to obtain, 42.5
percent of high school seniors responded.

El Paso, Socorro and Ysleta district officials said they try to be
proactive with police officers assigned to each high school, using
drug-sniffing dogs and offering anti-drug education.

Criminal charges are also increased if illegal drugs are found on
campus or other designated drug-free zones.

"I think it's a sign of the times," said Chief Michael Czerwinsky of
the Socorro Independent School District Police Department. "For us,
one case is one too many."