SCHOOL SURVEY RESULTS 'BURIED'

SENIOR Government officials have been accused of suppressing a damning
report which shows alarmingly high drug use among NSW school children.

Anti-drug lobbyists have challenged the Government to release the results
of a 1996 survey said to show shocking increases in children's use of
alcohol, marijuana and other drugs.

The survey findings were made available to health and/or education
departments in every State and Territory in the first half of 1997.

The study of Year 7 to Year 12 students is the fifth in a series of
three-yearly national surveys conducted by the Victorian Anti-Cancer
Council and funded by taxpayers.

The Queensland authorities became the first to publish State survey
findings more than a year ago.

The results, which stunned drug educators, showed almost double the number
of students reporting they had used marijuana since the last study in 1993.

More than 55 per cent of Year 12 girls and 53 per cent of boys had tried
marijuana, with one in five confessing they smoked it regularly.

Alcohol consumption among all secondary students from age 12 to 17 had
increased dramatically, with an estimated 83,000 Queensland teenagers
consuming alcohol in the week prior to the survey.

Health department sources claim the results are closely mirrored in NSW
schools. But only "minimal" detail of the survey has so far been released
by the NSW Health Department.

A brief "statistical bulletin" was released in September this year, but the
results were overshadowed by the State Government announcement on the same
day of dedicated courts for drug offenders.

Various drug education groups and welfare agencies believe the timing of
the two releases was not entirely coincidental.

The NSW Education Department displayed a similar reticence to publish a
report which showed significant increases in the use of alcohol and illicit
drugs by TAFE students.

The results of that survey 96 which was also conducted in 1996 96 were
finally released after public complaints by the researchers in September
this year.

While many agencies expressed concern about the "burial" of the secondary
school report, many were reluctant to go on record because of fears of
retaliative funding cuts.

"It is nothing short of a conspiracy," one welfare agency spokesman said.

Life Education Australia executive director Dr Terry Metherell said he
believed the Government was "covering up bad results".

National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre spokesman Paul Dillon said the
release of the data was vital to plan drug education strategies.

"If it doesn't get released it is an enormous waste of taxpayers' money, if
nothing else," Mr Dillon said.

A spokeswoman for Health Minister Andrew Refshauge said the final report
had not been released because it wasn't finished.

She said that to her knowledge, Dr Refshauge had not even seen the document.

A Health Department spokeswoman said the report was in its "final draft",
but she could not say when it would be made public.

"It took a long while to get co-ordinated," she said.

Victoria and South Australia had also not released their final reports, she
said.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski