PIPELINE TO PRISON

As far as the Students for Sensible Drug Policy are concerned, the 11
Flathead High School teens arrested last Tuesday for selling marijuana
to an undercover police officer have been placed on a fast-track to
prison.

"If school administrators feel the need to place undercover officers
in our schools, it is obvious that zero tolerance policies have
failed," says James Weleber, president of the SSDP chapter at Montana
State University, Bozeman.

For two months, a 24-year-old Billings police officer--described by
Kalispell Police Chief Frank Garner as a baby face in baggy
pants--posed as a high school student and purchased marijuana from
teenage dealers. Some students felt betrayed, acknowledges Flathead
High School Principal Callie Langohr, but the school had already run
through other options for handling reports of drug use among
students--like interventions and repeated calls to parents.

SSPD condemns the arrests on numerous counts. First of all, current
drug education, including the DARE program, is not science-based, says
SSPD activist Melissa Milam.

If educators were sincerely worried about substance abuse, she says,
drug education would be comprehensive, including alcohol and tobacco
along with marijuana and other illegal and prescription drugs.

The most hypocritical part of the arrests, Milam believes, is that
high school students notoriously abuse alcohol. She'd like to know
whether the undercover agent arrested students for underage drinking.

The focus, says Principle Langohr, was on the alleged drug use. "We
wanted to determine the reliability and credibility of the reports [of
drug use]," she says.

SSPD's opposition to the arrests isn't a vote in favor of drug use,
Milam cautions. "We by no means and in no way condone or encourage the
use of drugs," she says.

Principle Langohr says the enrollment status of the 11 students
arrested is currently under review, and will result in a range of
actions from no-action to expulsion.