POT STILL NUMBER ONE WITH EXPELLED STUDENTS

Marijuana is the drug of choice for the more than 100 students suspended
from Vancouver high schools for drug violations in the past school year.

According to statistics gathered for the Courier by the Vancouver school
board, 101 students in city high schools received formal suspensions for
being under the influence of marijuana since last September. Sixteen were
disciplined for possession of the substance and three were caught dealing it.

No information was released by the board about any students punished for
infractions relating to other types of drugs.

"I'm not suggesting for a minute that nothing else has ever made it into
schools, but this is the information I've got and that's it," said
associate superintendent Gary Little, adding, "It's pretty paltry numbers
frankly. It's fewer than half of one per cent of our secondary school
enrolment."

Enrolment sits at about 28,000.

Little noted that the drug-use figures aren't as high as those from teen
surveys, including ones from the McCreary Centre Society, a non-profit
organization that polls students annually about adolescent health issues
including drug use and sex.

He suspects the disparity in numbers may be because drug activity doesn't
always come to the attention of staff and because the teen survey doesn't
differentiate between drug use in or out of school.

Aileen Murphy, the society's managing director, was not surprised school
board statistics for disciplinary action on drug violations related only to
marijuana. She said students in school are more likely to experiment with
pot than substances like crystal meth, which is more common among street kids.

Insp. John de Haas, head of the youth services section for the Vancouver
Police Department, said he also wasn't surprised by school board numbers.
"Often people perceive more to be going on in the schools than is going
on," he said.

Pot use among B.C. teens has fallen slightly since 1998-to 37 per cent from
40 per cent-based on the McCreary Centre's 2003 survey. That's still much
higher than in 1992 when the figure sat at 25 per cent, but it's considered
good news to researchers. "The dramatic increase in marijuana use was a
major finding in 1998 so any decrease since then is positive," the report
states.

Little said all the suspended students from Vancouver schools who were
spread out fairly evenly across the district, were referred to an alcohol
and drug counsellor at their school or in the community.