SCHOOL DRUG TESTS MAY BE RANDOM

Random drug testing of known cannabis users may form part of a radical
anti-drug strategy being promoted by St Andrew's College rector Barry Maister.

The school last year expelled four 14-year-old fourth-form boys found
smoking cannabis in school uniform on a ground next to the school.

But in future, teenage drug abusers at St Andrew's may be offered the
option of a $10,000 three-week residential treatment programme at Hanmer
Springs, followed by random drug testing.

Mr Maister floated the concept at a drug education meeting attended by 300
St Andrew's parents this month.

Instead of expelling students found to be using illicit drugs, Mr Maister
said he wanted to offer professional assessment and treatment.

"I want to be absolutely clear that at this school there is a zero
tolerance to drugs. That has not and will not change.

"What has changed is I now see there must be a better way to deal with this
problem than putting these young people out on the streets, because there's
no-one out there to treat them."

A regime of random drug testing in the two years after treatment would
enable him to accept the students back into the school with total confidence.

Mr Maister said his proposal had met with strong support from parents, a
number of whom were already randomly drug testing their children after they
had been found to be using cannabis.

Mr Maister's proposal for an independent drug treatment and prevention
programme for secondary schools is being developed in tandem with Instep
Limited, an offshoot of the Hanmer Institute, which now runs Queen Mary
Hospital.

The institute is already contracted by the Regional Health Authority to
provide residential treatment for a small number of adolescents aged 14 to
19 suffering from alcohol and drug addiction. Parents unable to secure an
RHA bed for their children pay $192 a day for a bed in the unit.

Institute chairman John Beattie said the secondary schools assistance
programme was a very different concept, designed not for addicts but for
adolescents still at the "top of the cliff".

"Our mission is to provide these adolescents with a highly structured,
physically and emotionally challenging programme which will enable them to
reach their full potential," he said.

The programme would have a strong outdoor pursuits focus, full parental
involvement, and be followed up by a two-year monitoring and counselling
service through the institute's Christchurch clinic.

Ideally the programme would offer some State-funded places so all schools
could access the service, but at this stage no government funding had been
secured, he said.

In flagging the future direction of St Andrew's drug policy, Mr Maister
also hit out at the Ministry of Education's new Drug Education Guide for
Principals and Boards of Trustees that has just been released to schools.

Mr Maister said that while the document was well intentioned, it seemed to
be premised on an assumption that young people would use illicit substances.

He questioned how a government department could draw up policies based on
the concept of "harm minimisation" rather than prohibition when the
substance in question was illegal.

"Why is the Ministry of Education talking about making it safer to use
cannabis when the stuff is illegal?" he asked.

Mr Maister said he certainly would not want to be working in the education
sector if the day came when marijuana was decriminalised.