DEALING WITH DRUGS IN THE SCHOOLYARD

Has the pill-pusher replaced the tuck shop?

Once upon a time, children at private school used to blow all their
pocket money at the tuck shop. These days, though, spare parental cash
can end up being spent on cannabis rather than Curly Wurlys.

These dangers have been highlighted in a recently published book, Mum,
Can You Lend Me Twenty Quid? (Piatkus, UKP14.99). In it, mother and
teacher Elizabeth Burton-Phillips tells how her twin sons started
taking soft drugs while at an independent school, then progressed to
ecstasy, crack cocaine and heroine, until one of her boys, Nick,
hanged himself at the age of 27.

The story has sent shivers through the private sector. But what should
parents do when their children let on that fellow pupils at school
take drugs? The first step, it seems, is to get to know the enemy.

"The drugs scene is completely different to what it was 20 or 30 years
ago," says Dr Pat Spungin of the parental website www.raisingkids.co.uk.
"If parents are going to have any credibility, they need to acquaint
themselves with what's out there."

Fortunately, this doesn't involve trawling dance clubs. Instead, the
information can be found on the Drugscope website (www.drugscope.org.uk).

Here you can learn that 2CB (also known as Nexus and Spectrum) is a
new, hallucinogenic variation on ecstasy and that Poppers (alias Rush
and Locker Room) are liquid nitrites that you breathe in for a quick
high and, although not actually illegal, can make you nauseous.

So is now the time to panic? No, says Pat Langham, headteacher of
Wakefield Girls High School and president of the 200-strong,
independent-sector Girls' Schools Association. "You should be
encouraged by the fact your child has chosen to open up to you," she
says. "You will discourage them from ever confiding in you again if
you immediately start delivering lectures, demanding names and
threatening to tell the school."

Certainly, barging into the head's office and denouncing the guilty
pupils may not be the best course of action. Apart from the fact that
your children may have got it wrong, there are issues of
self-preservation involved. Not yours, but theirs.

"You've got to think of the consequences for your children," says an
adviser at Talk To Frank, the independent drugs advice line. "If
people find out it was your kids who talked, it could be dangerous for
them."

Good point. Especially if the school operates a zero-tolerance drugs
policy, along the lines of one-puff-and-you're-expelled.

"If there's no chink of light, no second chance, it makes it more
likely that people won't come forward with information and that the
problem will remain in the shadows," says Mark Pyper, head of
Gordonstoun.

He scrapped the school's zero-tolerance policy on his arrival, 17
years ago, and feels that his aim to minimise drug abuse, and move
towards eradicating it, has been more effectively achieved as a result.

One alternative, if you don't want to disclose specific details to the
school, is to cloak your allegations in a degree of fogginess. At
Gordonstoun, the head boy and head girl are asked to "steer" staff in
the general direction of miscreants (eg: "There's a problem in Year 10
Boys"). Alternatively, parents can get their offspring to ring
Childline, which will inform the school but never breathe your name.

Before passing on any kind of tip-off, though, it's essential to look
at the school's stated drugs policy to see what fate awaits the
children you're pointing the finger at. Dr Martin Stephen, High Master
of St Paul's School in London, thinks parents are more likely to
divulge a drugs problem if they feel it will lead not to blind
retribution but to rehabilitation.

At St Paul's, as at Gordonstoun, erring pupils are allowed to stay on
at the school on three conditions: that they haven't been taking hard
drugs; that they haven't brought those drugs on to school premises;
and that they agree to a one-last-chance programme of random
drug-testing.

"I loathe cannabis and believe it to be a lethal drug," says Dr
Stephen. "That said, to operate a one-strike-and-you're-out policy is
to deny the nature of childhood. You also tend to find that parents
are 100 per cent in favour of a zero-tolerance policy until it's their
child who's caught.

"As for children in the private sector being more vulnerable to drugs,
I don't agree. I feel immense sorrow for Elizabeth Burton-Phillips and
for her loss but, in my experience, drugs are just as prevalent in the
State sector as in independent schools. None of us should be
complacent."