SCHOOLS URGED TO KEEP DOPERS

WASHINGTON -- The federal drug director is urging schools to offer help to
students who use drugs, not just toss them out.

Guidelines in a report released Thursday by the Office of National Drug
Control Policy urge treatment and counseling for drug-using high schoolers
rather than simply suspending or expelling them.

"The goal is to say we believe we can do a better job of making kids
healthy," said John Walters, who directs the office. Kicking students out of
school without treatment can create "drug-using dropouts," an even bigger
problem, the report said.

The advice challenges policies in many districts to automatically suspend or
expel students caught with drugs.

The new policy was announced a day after the agency released a separate
report in Miami showing a decline in first-time marijuana users last year.

While that study found fewer adolescents are first-time marijuana users than
in previous years, it said those that are risk succumbing to long-term drug
addiction.

"Marijuana is not the soft drug," Walters said.

He said government, community agencies and parents must marshal their powers
to prevent and treat marijuana abuse.

According to the study, 62 percent of cocaine users aged 26 or older were
first-time marijuana users by age 14.

The idea that marijuana leads to harder drugs was challenged by the National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, based in Washington, which
said only one of every 104 first-time marijuana ever uses use heroin or
cocaine.

While the study released Thursday provides guidelines for handling student
drug users, final decisions on what to do remain in the hands of school
districts.

Dan Langan, an Education Department spokesman, said: "The guide is a tool
and it's a helpful tool, but how a district and a school choose to implement
any recommendations in the guide is up to them."