BOY, 4, BRINGS POT TO SCHOOL

A Spokesman for the Camden County Prosecutor Said a Smidgen Of
Marijuana Was Found in a Napkin.

A city already rocked by drug overdoses, reverse stings and drug-ring
busts yesterday was grappling with the news that a 4-year-old boy had
brought a small amount of marijuana to a Head Start center.

The drugs were found Thursday morning when the child motioned to get a
teacher's attention at a Head Start facility at Broadway and Pine
Street, said Bill Shralow, a spokesman for the Camden County
Prosecutor's Office.

Shralow said the boy was holding a napkin wrapped around a "minuscule"
amount of marijuana.

No one has been arrested. The prosecutor's office and the state
Division of Youth and Family Services are investigating, Shralow said.

Michael Kantner, deputy chief of the prosecutor's investigators, said
the agency's child-abuse unit had been assigned to follow the case.

"We're totally shocked," said Arnold Byrd, executive director of the
board that oversees the Head Start center. "The only thing we really
can do is try to talk to the parents and educate them."

The Head Start network serves 1,200 students at 28 centers throughout
Camden County, Byrd said.

He estimated that about 180 children, most of them Camden residents,
attend the center.

In December, a toddler brought crack cocaine to a day-care center at
Broad Street and Belfield Avenue in Philadelphia. In October, a
5-year-old in the Port Richmond section of the city brought eight bags
of heroin to an elementary school. Neither child had ingested any of
the drugs.