GILBERT UNITES TO FIGHT TEEN DRUG USE

People often move to Gilbert because it is the kind of place they'd
like to raise their children, with its good schools, nice parks and
little crime.

But that inviting setting has been shattered in the past two months
after two teenagers died of overdoses, 29 students were suspended from
school for drug use and a teenage girl was arrested and accused of
smuggling 2,900 pills from Mexico.

What a town can do about teenage drug use

Contact drug education groups to put on seminars for teachers, parents
and other residents. Community Bridges, a Mesa non-profit
drug-prevention agency, trains school personnel about drug abuse, talks
to children about the dangers and presents educational programs for
parents. Details: (480) 831-7566.

Enlist the support of all agencies that deal with children and
families, including schools, law enforcement, religious groups,
social-service agencies and health care organizations.

Understand the problem. Learn more at www.drugfreeaz.org, sponsored by
the Maricopa County Attorney's Office, and www.drugfreeamerica.org,
which offers tips from the Partnership for a Drug-Free America in New
York on how to raise drug-free teens.

Gilbert teen drug cases . Feb. 29: Gilbert High student Jillian
Cleary, 15, of Chandler, dies after reportedly taking methamphetamine
at a party. Police are investigating. . March 8: A total of 29
students, 16 at Gilbert High and 13 at Highland High, are suspended
for 10 days for using, selling or buying muscle relaxants. . March 25:
Two Desert Ridge High sophomores are hospitalized after taking
over-the-counter cold pills on campus. One also takes antidepressants
given to her by another girl, 15. . March 31: Chris Manciet, 18, a
Mesquite High senior, dies at a Mesa hospital five days after
swallowing a packet of cocaine when police pull him over during a
traffic stop. . April 27: A Mesquite High School student is arrested
after she and a friend, both 16, are accused of smuggling 2,900
tablets of a generic version of the muscle relaxant Soma from Mexico
while on a trip with parents. The first teen is charged with two
drug-related crimes and faces a June hearing. Police confiscate some
of the pills. More than 1,100 are unaccounted for.

Source: Gilbert police and school reports.

Related stories . How to talk to your child about drugs
http://www.azcentral.com/families/education/articles/0329eddrugs29.html

Five years ago, this community was torn apart with the news of a
violent White-supremacist gang in its midst.

Now it seems there's a drug problem in this quiet fast-growing town in
the southeast Valley, as there is in just about every community. The
difference here is that officials have vowed to put a stop to it.

"There's little tolerance for this kind of thing," said Lacey Rose
Cox, a social worker with the Gilbert Police Department's youth and
adult resources, where kids caught with drugs are referred for
counseling. "We don't want this going on. We'll do whatever we need to
do to stop it."

Throughout Gilbert, people refer to the kids suspended or arrested as
"the ones who got caught," well aware that they are not the only ones.

In the latest incident, a teenage girl is accused of outwitting Border
Patrol agents to smuggle drugs home from Mexico. Getting by a few
security guards at high school is nothing compared with that.

Gilbert Schools Superintendent Brad Barrett warns that there could be
more suspensions, even more arrests, as school officials and police
try to stamp out the drug problem before it gets too big.

"I don't want the public to be afraid if we see more of this coming,"
he said. "It's because we're out there looking for it."

In 1999, an 18-year-old man was beaten by members of the Devil Dogs,
identified as a White-supremacist gang. The violence and its aftermath
broke the innocence of what was still a small town.

Since then, Gilbert has made huge efforts to heal itself.

At public forums, residents have talked frankly about ethnic and
religious discrimination in this mostly White community. The school
district hired a diversity director, and every school district
employee attends diversity training.

Diversity programs are common in schools and churches. The town set up
a Human Relations Commission.

Now, Gilbert is attacking its drug problem, with education programs
and a new substance-abuse treatment group.

Punishment is swift for kids who get caught with drugs.

Counselors have gone from classroom to classroom to talk about drugs
and tell kids what will happen if they use or bring drugs to school.
The counselors will do it again when school starts up again after
summer vacation.

Churches and community groups have pledged to support the schools'
efforts. A new brochure tells parents how to detect drug use. Parents
talk to their children about drugs and keep a closer eye on their
kids' friends.

Teachers and parents who once chided children for being tattletales
are now telling their sons and daughters that notifying an adult about
a friend's drug use could save a life.

Enforcement stressed

The town's battle relies heavily on schools' tough drug policies.
Other districts' policies are as tough, but Gilbert school officials
are unbending in their enforcement.

Any student who uses, possesses or distributes drugs faces an
automatic 10-day suspension.

"There is no discretion," said Dianne Bowers, spokeswoman for Gilbert
Public Schools. "A principal or an administrator could not look at
that situation and say, 'This is your first time. We'll give you a
pass this time.' It can't happen that way."

During the 10-day suspension, students and their parents must meet
with a district hearing officer who conducts an investigation. The
hearing officer can recommend further discipline.

Kids can be referred to education and treatment programs as a
condition for returning to school or be sent to an alternative
learning program, even a different school, to separate them from other
users.

Students who sell drugs are expelled.

"You have to have a tough policy and the courage to enforce that
policy," Superintendent Barrett said.

This school year, 157 Gilbert students have been suspended for drug
infractions. About half were for prescription or over-the-counter medicines.

One student was suspended for handing out vitamin C and spirulina, a
nutritional supplement, a move for which Barrett and the board were
criticized. But Barrett said, "We don't want a culture where kids are
sitting around the cafeteria table passing out these substances that
no one has ever heard of."

For three years, Ann Warner of Community Bridges, a Mesa non-profit
drug-prevention agency, has led education programs in Gilbert. They
are typically well attended, with 150 to 300 people. At presentations
in other school districts, as few as five parents have shown up.

At the last one in Gilbert on April 25, the night before the
16-year-old was arrested, 350 people showed up.

"It means people care," said Maggie Cathey, a founding member of
Gilbert Citizens Action Network, or CAN, a group of mostly
social-service agencies.

"We have our problems like anywhere else," said Cathey, a Gilbert Town
Council member in the late 1990s and substitute teacher. In Gilbert,
she said, residents want those problems dealt with swiftly. "They want
to raise their kids in a very clean community, morally and otherwise."

Parents such as Cathy Pai say that they are concerned about drug use
but that the problem in Gilbert isn't any worse than anywhere else.
The difference: "We're not sweeping it under the rug."

Pai has two teenagers, 13 and 15, and is president of the
parent-teacher group at Mesquite Junior High. She and other parents
are talking to their children about drugs and have banded together to
keep watch on all kids.

Stemming the tide

Gilbert Public Schools has 35,000 students; 10,000 of those students
live in Mesa. Gilbert and Mesa police support the district's attempt
to get rid of drug activity.

"There's no place for drugs in schools and, if we can keep them out,
we will," Gilbert police Lt. Joe Ruet said.

He has lived there for 16 years. Teenagers don't get away with much in
the community, where kids out after curfew are cited and young smokers
are referred to the police for counseling.

The students suspended for drug infractions were all quickly referred
to Cox, the social worker with the Gilbert police, for educational
programs and counseling.

She started a drug-treatment group that met for the first time this week.

Her division also put together a brochure on prescription and
over-the-counter medicines for parents who came in after the recent
suspensions and arrest, asking, "What is this? What do I look for?"

Cox also has two teenagers, one at Highland High, the other at
Highland Junior High. She has lived there for 21 years and watched the
community rally like this before, after the Devil Dogs case.

"There is a commitment in this community to take care of our youth,"
Cox said. "Within the school, the Town Council, the Police Department,
that's always been a big priority."

She agrees with Barrett that this likely will not end the town's drug
problem.

"The one thing I do hear from kids is, this is just the tip of the
iceberg, what we're dealing with," Cox said. "It's there every day for
those kids, and parents need to know that. It's rampant. It's not just
Gilbert. It's everywhere."