MAYOR TARGETS 'HIGH' SCHOOLS

Wants More Cops in Schools to Weed Out 'Rampant' Pot
Use

Mayor Bob Chiarelli says there's a drug epidemic in city schools and
he wants more cops policing pushers and stoned students.

Up to 60% of Ottawa students are getting high on pot during the
school day, Chiarelli said yesterday as he unveiled a plan designed
to attack drug pushers in the hallways and playgrounds.

"There is a rampant problem of drugs in our schools," said Chiarelli,
who has been badly trailing mayoral candidates Larry O'Brien and
frontrunner Alex Munter in the polls.

Chiarelli promised to ask the Ottawa Police Services Board to deploy
13 more officers to act as school resource officers. This would
increase the ratio of officers in schools to one for every 10
schools, up from one for every 15 schools.

The mayor said the additional officers would come from the 180 new
police hires expected over the next two years.

'HAVEN FOR DRUGS?

Chiarelli said principals and vice-principals have told him that
40-60% of the student body could be smoking pot in the course of the
school day.

The mayor said he was told by a vice-principal at a Barrhaven school
that 45-55% of students were "doing drugs every day."

Ottawa-Carleton District School Board trustee David Moen said
district staff have never mentioned anything about a drug epidemic in
the city's schools.

"It is news to me that students are using that rate during the school
day," said Moen, trustee for Innes, Beacon Hill-Cyrville.

"We are always concerned by inappropriate drug use, but we have no
information that there is a massive use rate."

The Ottawa-Carleton Catholic School Board refused to comment. Calls
to the Catholic school board chair were not returned.

When pressed on his pot-smoking data, Chiarelli referred reporters to
background documents. The documents make no mention of school-based
drug use in Ottawa. Documents did cite Statistics Canada data that
said the rate of youth drug offences had dropped over the past three
years, including a 12% decrease last year for pot-related offenses.

OFFENCES UP

StatsCan did find that offences related to harder drugs had
increased. Health Canada data said that one-third of youth aged 15-24
had used pot at some point in their lives.

Ottawa police data showed a 2% increase in drug-related calls last year.