SCHOOL DRUG SURGE ALARM

Heroin dealers are invading our schools with drug gangs using state
school students as couriers.

Police say children as young as 11 are suspected of trafficking amid
growing reports of heroin sales in schools. The Herald Sun has learned
that more than one child a fortnight is expelled from Victoria's state
schools for dealing, using or possessing drugs.

Forty-eight students have been kicked out of state schools in the past
two years for drug offences, according to the Education Department.

Police say children as young as 14 are now regular heroin
users.

Police intelligence reveals:

CRIME syndicates are recruiting students as heroin couriers, with the
recent arrest of a 17-year-old who had flown from Sydney to Melbourne
and on to Surfers Paradise making deliveries.

HEROIN users are starting younger, with more teenagers and more fatal
overdoses among young users.

LOW prices have seen a rapid rise in LSD use among 14 to
24-year-olds.

ECSTASY is no longer confined to the rave music scene, with its use
growing in the wider community.

DEALERS are increasingly mixing heroin with cannabis to tempt
youngsters.

Open Family worker Les Twentyman said few Melbourne schools would not
have drug problems.

He said dealers preying on middle class schools were offering children
start-up kits of free drugs to get them hooked.

"Some of the schools have got little drug cartels operating within and
they're using the younger kids in lower levels as Indians and you're
getting older kids bullying younger kids (into taking drugs)," he said.

The Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence predicts the use of
heroin, marijuana, LSD, ecstasy and other designer drugs will continue
to grow among the young.

Last year, 21 state school students were expelled for drug
offences.

Twenty-seven students were forced to leave in 1998, including 11 who
were expelled after hidden cameras at Glen Eira Secondary College
filmed students using heroin for several weeks.

"There is an increase in the willingness of young people to experiment
with heroin and an increased availability of the drug," the ABCI's
annual illicit drug report says.

Victorian police reported growing incidents of heroin sales in schools
to the ABCI, although no police figures are available.

Police sources said dealers were aiming at wealthy, middle-class
schools, because many of the students had "money to burn".

Eastern Drug and Alcohol Service coordinator Anne Maree Rogers said
she was increasingly being called by eastern suburbs schools to
address drug problems and teach students and teachers.

"It's been fairly hectic with people wanting more information about
their duty of care to their students and how to inform parents and
keep the school community safe," she said.

At the start of the year Mr Twentyman said he had helped find a new
school for an 11-year-old suspected of drug dealing.

Last week he said he had asked a Year 12 class at Melbourne Grammar
who knew someone taking drugs and every class member raised their hand.

Mr Twentyman supported moves by schools, including Melbourne, Wesley
and Geelong Grammars, to offer drug testing to students caught taking
drugs as an alternative to expulsion.

He said it was preferable to calling in police and involving young
students in the criminal system.

"This is the biggest crisis faced in our country ever because it's
affecting our most important product, which is our young," he said.

The ABCI report says increased detections of heroin imports and
increased demand for treatment by users suggests Australia is
experiencing a rapid increase use of heroin, "particularly among our
youth".

It says there has been an increase in the number and type of heroin
users in all states and territories, but singled out the rise in the
number of young and female users in Melbourne.

"The number of fatal overdoses has continued to rise, while the age of
first use of heroin appears to be falling 96 children as young as 14
reportedly using the drug," the report says.

Victorian police are also concerned at the number of young people
experimenting with marijuana laced with heroin 96 known as "snow
coning" 96 or amphetamines.

Police say this method is increasingly used by heroin dealers to
expand their market.

In January an Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report into
the well-being of our youth found one in five males and one in 10
females aged 18-24 had a substance abuse disorder.

An Education Department spokeswoman last night said the student drug
expulsion figures seemed to indicate a very low rate of drug-related
incidents among the state's 530,000 public students.