DRUG DEALERS TARGETING MIDDLE-CLASS PUPILS

A mother whose privately educated son died after becoming addicted to
drugs warned other middle-class parents that their children could be
"groomed" by dealers targeting independent schools.

Elizabeth Burton-Phillips, a teacher at an independent school, said
the drug dealers were selecting "naive" pupils from affluent homes.

She warned that a generation of middle-class children were living in
"denial" that they were safe from drug pushers and said teachers
should not bury their "heads in the sand".

In a speech to the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference, which
represents 250 top independent schools, she said many pupils from
wealthy homes had been "compensated" with money, which some spent on drugs.

"I have worked in the independent sector for 35 years," she said.
"Large percentages of pupils in the senior schools feel that drugs
cannot touch them.

"Sometimes, they are sadly not grounded in family life, and are
compensated by having too much money. The drug dealers are very aware
of this. As one recovering public school cocaine addict recently said
to me, 'The drug dealers simply charge us twice the street price.'
The dealers are far from stupid with middle-class school pupils and
their families."

She said it was "shocking" that pupils did not know about the
"sophisticated grooming techniques used by dealers, to help
unsuspecting, naive, wealthy pupils to progress from the fun, or
initiation rite, of recreational drugs to a place of despair, decay and death".

Mrs Burton-Phillips, the head of religious education at Godstowe
Preparatory School, High Wycombe, told how her twin boys, Nick and
Simon, became addicts.

Aged 13, they started smoking cigarettes at while at an independent
school. Mrs Elizabeth Burton-Phillips was alerted by school staff
after it emerged that they had also taken cannabis. After leaving
school, the boys moved on to ecstasy, crack cocaine and heroin.

Three years ago, Nick, aged 27, hanged himself, while Simon vowed to
turn his life around.

Mrs Burton-Phillips, who has written a book on her experiences called
Mum, Can You Lend Me Twenty Quid?, told the conference: "Could it be
that one of the significant problems that middle-class youth face in
our independent schools is denial that your school could ever have
any drug problem or the foolish belief that cannabis is not that serious?"

She called for head teachers to do more to highlight the risk posed
by drugs, imposing a zero-tolerance approach to substance misuse.