POLICE, SCHOOLS DEALING WITH POT SMOKERS

Four CEC Students Arrested This Week for Smoking Marijuana Before Classes

Truro - The pungent smell of marijuana smoke hangs in the air of the
Colchester Legion Stadium parking lot on any given school day, say a
number of observant students.

"You can stand here in the morning and smell it coming from that way
and that way," 18-year-old Cobequid Educational Centre student
Christina Pyke said yesterday as she glanced around the parking area.

CEC seniors Pyke and Melanie Malally said marijuana is easy to find.

Often, students can be found lighting up in the adjacent stadium and
high school parking lots.

"You can get it (marijuana) here by any means. Five minutes at most
and we could have it in our hands if we wanted," said Pyke.

Four CEC students were charged with drug possession for smoking
marijuana in the stadium parking lot on Tuesday.

The students, three teenage females and one adult male, were smoking
their dope before the first bell rang.

They were arrested about 8:50 a.m.

Constable Monte Emery, an officer with the drug enforcement unit,
said Truro police have received at least four complaints about
marijuana use at the stadium and high school parking lots since
September. As a result, police have increased monitoring activity.

"It's an ongoing problem. It seems like an annual complaint," Emery
said, referring to students' marijuana use on and near high school grounds.

Following Tuesday's arrest, police will continue to monitor parking
lots, he said.

But Malally, also 18, said the arrests will have little impact.
Students who want to smoke marijuana won't be turned away by an
increased police presence at the high school, she said.

"I don't think they should have been arrested.

"People are going to have to get used to it. (Marijuana) is around here.

"You can arrest people all you want but they're just going to come
right back and do it again.

"There's no stopping it."

Malcolm MacLean, a 19-year-old senior, disagrees. Although he concurs
that marijuana is readily available, he said only a "select few"
actually smoke on or around school grounds.

CEC principal Rosalie Stewart-Fisher said the high school has
developed a close partnership with police in order to monitor drug
use, loitering, disputes and driving infractions in parking lots.

"I think all the monitoring that we do and all the monitoring by the
Truro police does make a difference."