TWO CENTENNIAL ACADEMY STUDENTS DISCIPLINED FOR DRUG USE

Two students at Centennial Academy are facing disciplinary action for
taking drugs in scary incidents that saw one of them rushed to hospital.

A Grade 11 student became "violently ill" last week after smoking an
illegal drug, head of school Angela Burgos wrote in a letter to parents.

The next day a Grade 9 student became "extremely sick" after buying
and "choosing to eat a brownie containing a narcotic," the letter
said. The teen was rushed to hospital.

Both students are fine, Burgos told The Gazette on Tuesday. The
incidents didn't occur on the private school's property in Notre Dame
de Grace, she said.

Exposure to drug use is pervasive and not limited to public schools,
private ones, rich people or poor ones, said Barbara Victor, clinical
director at Agence Ometz, a nonprofit social services agency whose
work includes drug prevention in many Montreal schools.

"The more important things that we need to know about exposure to
drug use is that the kids are getting younger and younger and we need
to get to them before their exposure," Victor said.

The national Youth Smoking Survey in 2008-09 found 27 per cent of
high school students in Quebec had used cannabis in the past 12
months and 54 per cent had consumed alcohol. Agence Ometz is now
doing drug education in Grade 6 classes at the English Montreal
School Board. Its Kids Can! drug awareness program was launched in
six EMSB elementary schools this year and will expand to 30 more
schools in the next two years. Concordia University is a partner in
the program.

The agency generally does drug education in high school, starting in
Grade 8 and usually in Grade 9.

"By that time, the kids are too old," Victor said. "We know that kids
are starting to experiment with drug use, cigarette smoking,
sexuality - certainly by Grade 6 - and we need to talk to them about
these risks. We've been doing drug education for a very long time and
very few elementary schools, if any, have ever really endorsed our
starting in Grade 6. So this, to me, is very exciting."

The six-hour program in every Grade 6 class at the EMSB is funded by
Health Canada. It's not just an education program, but a
skillbuilding one, Victor said. "We want to talk about how do you
make a decision, how do you deal with peer pressure?"

They are concentrating on two drugs: marijuana and the street use of
Ritalin because "kids have a lot of access to Ritalin,
unfortunately," Victor said.

Centennial's policy for drug-related incidents involves a suspension
and students must go into a rehabilitation outpatient program to be
readmitted to school or face expulsion, Burgos said.

"That's the best practices now. You need to be seen to be helping
kids and helping them is getting them into a rehabilitation program.
That's the protocol."