DRUG ARRESTS ARE FEW IN LOCAL SCHOOLS

Terrebonne and Lafourche public schools enroll more than 32,000
students combined, but so far this year, fewer than three dozen have
been arrested for bringing drugs onto campuses.

Education officials and police readily acknowledge that more students
are involved in drugs and that more can always be done to keep them
out of schools.

But one reason such a relative few arrests are made is that schools --
with teachers and principals and in some cases police constantly on
alert -- appeals to common sense, one officer says.

"Students aren't stupid," said Darryl Stewart, who runs the Terrebonne
Parish Sheriff's Office's Narcotics Division. "They know that this
isn't the place to try to do that."

The issue was thrust into the public spotlight last week when a
13-year-old seventh-grader at Caldwell Middle in Schriever was
arrested after allegedly bringing six bags of marijuana to school.

But police and school records show that's a rare occurrence.

With the first half of the school year almost over, 28 students in
Terrebonne and five in Lafourche have been caught with drugs on
campus, administrators say.

Last year, 51 out of Terrebonne's more than 17,600 students and 20 out
of Lafourche's 15,000 students were arrested on drug charges while in
school.

Administrators say most of those arrests are related to
marijuana.

"Among teenagers, marijuana usage seems to be going up not only
parishwide but statewide," said Ray Bernard, child-welfare attendance
supervisor for Lafourche Parish. "That's the trend we're trying to
deal with."

Bernard said about half of the drug arrests in Lafourche schools are
marijuana-related. Most of the others stem from unauthorized
prescription medicine. Only a handful come from "harder" drugs such as
cocaine.

Stewart said his department sees such a huge volume of marijuana
arrests that it's hard for him to say whether use is growing. But he
says marijuana is "always going to see the biggest
percentage."

Stewart says marijuana is popular because the cultural taboos against
it have steadily eroded.

"There's not that stigma attached to it," Stewart said. "It's not
dirty, or ugly or scary anymore."

A study by the National Institute on Drug Abuse estimates that 17.4
percent of eighth-graders, 33.4 percent of 10th-graders and 43.8
percent of 12th-graders used marijuana at least once last year. All
three figures are up significantly from the previous year.

The study said that, for the first time, marijuana use was more
popular among school-age youth than cigarettes. Like Stewart, the
study blames shifting attitudes about the drug.

"Perceived risk of regular marijuana use also declined among 10th and
12th graders, suggesting future trends in use may continue upward,"
the study authors wrote.

Meanwhile, a 2010 Pew Research survey found that 41 percent of
Americans think marijuana should be made legal, up from 35 percent in
2008.

School Policies

Students who get caught with drugs in school face severe
penalties.

State law classifies the area within 2,000 feet of a school as a "Drug
Free Zone." A student accused of trying to distribute drugs within
that zone faces additional penalties on top of the basic charge.

If the student is younger than 16, he is expelled for 12 months. If
older, he can be expelled for 24 months. Once the student and a parent
provide written notice that the student has enrolled in a rehab
program, the student is sent to an alternative school.

Most students are allowed to reenroll at their regular school under
probation after spending time at the alternative schools. At the
latter, behavior is strictly monitored and students' lives are more
regimented.

Local school systems also take measures to catch drugs students might
sneak into classrooms. Bernard said teachers are trained to look for
signs of drug use, and each school must spend 16 hours a year on
drug-education programs.

If a teacher or administrator suspects drugs may be on campus,
drug-sniffing dogs are brought in unannounced.

"A lot of the times we'll bring in the drug dogs, and even the
administration won't know that it's coming," Bernard said. "We try to
make sure it happens fast and is unexpected so we can catch people."

What parents can do

Stewart said there's only so much school officials can do to prevent
drugs from entering campus, especially since most drug activity
happens off school grounds.

"The School Board does an excellent job in trying to keep it off the
school," he said. "But they can't control what happens when they get
back into their environments at home and elsewhere."

Stewart said it's important for parents to actively check in with kids
to see if or how they've been exposed to drugs.

"You need to be paying attention to the people your child is hanging
around," he said. "Pay attention to what you see in your child's
backpack. The more attention you pay, the better the chance you have
of preventing your child from getting in serious trouble."

Stewart said its important for parents to make sure their children are
aware of the consequences of being associated with marijuana, even if
it seems like the drug "isn't a big deal."

"Tell them that if they see drugs, back away as fast as you can," he
said. "If somebody hands it to you to hide it for them, then you're as
guilty as they are. If somebody gives you money to pass to somebody
else, you're just as guilty as they are."