WAR ON TEENS USING DRUGS GOING UP IN SMOKE

A recent survey of teenagers in Quebec has given "high" school a whole new
meaning - nearly half of the 4,730 students polled said they have smoked
marijuana, while one fifth get stoned regularly.

This, after years of public and private schools alike pumping millions of
dollars into urging kids to say no.

So what went wrong?

Ask Alvin Powell, a former National Football League player who destroyed
his own career with drugs and now counsels teenagers.

Powell maintains there hasn't been enough of a concerted effort.

"Teachers everywhere are burnt out trying to teach math to kids in Pluto
and watching them destroy themselves," said Powell, who visits about 40
Montreal high schools a year.

But it's schools, parents, the government, celebrities and the average Joe
that have to participate - and get radical about it - if they want
teenagers to stop, according to Powell.

"We need to send a hard, hard message and use people that kids look up to -
actresses, sports celebrities, the guy who owns the local McDonald's, the
guy who works at the Couche-Tard. And every time a kid dies from alcohol or
drug abuse, we need to put it on a billboard."

Powell said all schools should have zero-tolerance policies on the sale and
possession of drugs, and even suggested they conduct drug tests on students
who they think are using.

Anything less, and the allure of drugs is overwhelming, he said, drawing on
his own personal experience.

"I always say, 'Drugs are great - they're fantastic. But they'll kill you.'
They're like a pedophile who has become your friend first to seduce you.
But with drugs, you wake up one day and you're 26 and you're doing the same
stupid things you were doing as a teenager."

Or as a parent, you wake up and your child is dead from an overdose, said
Fraigie Adelman, who lost her son to drugs 11 years ago.

"I was so proud he came to talk to me about it when he started smoking
marijuana at 15," said Adelman, director of Project Pride, a crisis centre
and prevention program for children in the English Montreal School Board.
"He said, 'Don't worry,' but then he got older and died of a heroin overdose."

She says schools have to work harder - parents can be begging their kids
not to use drugs, but they can't hold their children's hands 24 hours a day
when they spend most of their time at school.

"There are programs for kids but not enough of them," she said. "People
should be running support groups for kids at risk - especially those with
attention-deficit disorder, prone to addiction - and there should be
special full-time counselors to deal with drugs in schools. But
unfortunately, the same problem always comes up - the budget."

The Ministry of Education gives about $4.1 million a year to school boards
specifically to prevent drug addiction.

But can schools and parents afford not to do more, Adelman asked. She says
alcohol and drug abuse also has a lot to do with Quebec's high number of
drop-outs.

In 1997-98, about 41 per cent of boys dropped out of high school - roughly
the same proportion of teenagers who smoked marijuana in the last year (42
per cent) and of Grade 11 students who drink regularly (40 per cent).

Unfortunately, schools are reluctant to own up to the problem.

"Schools are very aware of it, but don't want to face it," Adelman said. "
God forbid that kids at school ABC are doing drugs. But it's happening at
every school, from very expensive private schools to those in poorer
neighbourhoods. It doesn't make a difference."

Indeed, none of the school principals contacted would comment on problems
in their schools, on or off the record.

Frank White, a commissioner for the Riverside school board on the South
Shore, said their zero-tolerance policy is working to keep the school safe.
Last year, a teenager was expelled from Centennial High School for having
$5 worth of marijuana on him.

But zero-tolerance won't necessarily stop kids from smoking up just beyond
the schoolyard.

"The school board does what it can, but there's no question that when the
Senate says we should decriminalize marijuana, it becomes a mixed message,"
White said. "We're not the parents, and too much is foisted on us already."