TEST STUDENTS FOR METH, SAYS MAYOR

Prove Him Wrong.

If students in local schools aren't using crystal meth, Gord Robson
wants School District 42 to prove it.

And in the meantime, the Maple Ridge mayor says, stop pointing
fingers at one another. Stop getting away from the real issue.

"It's disappointing that the subject isn't how many treatment beds we
have and what we're going to do about people in need," he told The
TIMES on Thursday.

Robson was speaking in response to a slew of letters sent to the
editor from readers suggesting he had overreacted and was fear
mongering. In a previous TIMES story, Robson had implied there were
hundreds of local youths being suspended from school each year thanks to meth.

Local school board representatives balked at his statement and
suggested there was no evidence of crystal meth use at any local schools.

And that's true, Robson says. There is no concrete evidence linking
students to crystal meth, and that's only because the district isn't
doing any drug testing.

"If we don't measure how will we ever know," he queried.

Parents of troubled teens in California can call up local school
districts and have their child tested on the spot, Robson said.

The cost? Ten dollars.

"Can I prove that they're on meth? No, because they won't test them."

Robson is confident that if those tests were done it would prove his
point - students in School District 42 are using methamphetamines.

His guess at how many are using still hovers at around 100 students per year.

"I can't prove that, but neither can they," and testing, he said, is
the only way to know for sure what youth are up to.

"That's the only way you know for sure," he said. Teens who are using
won't tell you, he says, because they are embarrassed to admit their
meth use, and, he says, "they lie."

Robson says he's come across kids through the Youth Diversion program
who insist they've never taken meth, but after a drug test, it's
found in their system. Many, he says, don't even know that the
ecstasy they're taking, the cocaine they're snorting, often contains meth.

So test them, he repeats.

"Spend the $10," he charges, and if it's found that there are,
indeed, no children in the district using the drug, great.

"That'll shut me up."