POT-SMOKING STUDENTS GIVEN CHANCE TO SWEAR OFF WEED

Signing A Promissory Contract An Alternative To Being Suspended

KELOWNA -- Kelowna schools are trying a new approach with pot-smoking
students this fall.

After a two-year trial at two high schools and a middle school, the school
district is bringing AIMS -- Alternative Intervention for Marijuana
Suspicion -- to all Kelowna public secondary schools.

AIMS offers students an alternative to suspension the first time they're
caught using marijuana.

If they choose to go the AIMS route, the police are notified, but no
charges are laid if students sign a contract promising not to use marijuana
again. They must also enrol in a counselling program.

"We thought we could do something more proactive [than suspensions]," said
RCMP Const. Dean Childs, who worked with the school district's Peter
Molloy, Okanagan Mission Secondary vice-principal John McMann and Okanagan
University College's Marvin Krank.

"Our main objective is to keep marijuana out of schools."

Students at Rutland Senior Secondary say pot use is widespread.

"More than half the kids here smoke pot at school," said Brittany Newby, a
Grade 12 student."[School officials] don't even know how many smoke pot.
They'd be suspending 50 kids a day if they did."

Newby said she was caught with pot at school two years ago and received a
one-day, in-school suspension, which allowed her to do school work in the
office.

Classmate Josh Harnett thinks AIMS is a positive step. "What are [students]
going to do if they're suspended? Go home and smoke some more weed?"

But Lynne Hooper, whose three kids are in Grades 6, 9 and 11, said AIMS is
too lenient.

"Drugs are illegal, and I don't want them in the school and I don't want my
kids around kids who do them," she said.

Windie Jeider, who has kids in Grade 9 and Grade 5, said the program "puts
more accountability on parents to know . . . and talk to their kids about
smoking pot."

Childs said 36 students tried AIMS during the two trial years. Of those,
only six were caught re-offending.