COCAINE TOO EASY TO GET

Parents will be justifiably alarmed to learn that students at Bracebridge
and Muskoka Lakes Secondary School believe cocaine is easily accessible.

Easy access to illicit drugs like cocaine is not something most people
associate with small town life in places like Bracebridge.

But cocaine is definitely here and within reach of young people.

"If you asked someone at school for some at 10 in the morning, you would
have it by the end of the day," one student told the Examiner.

That anonymous assessment will come as no surprise to people at Ontario's
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. The organization has been surveying
students about drug use for 28 years. Its latest survey partly confirms what
young people here are saying.

The availability of cocaine has significantly increased since 1989 and its
use among school children has risen over the past four years, the centre
found. About one in five students say cocaine is easy to get.

The trend to increasing use of cocaine is very troubling. But the latest
survey of Ontario students found some positive and hopeful changes in young
people's behaviours. It found that overall use of illegal drugs is down. And
contrary to local students' estimates that 15-20 per cent of Grade 12
students had used cocaine last year, the centre's survey found that less
than 7 per cent of Grade 12 students in Ontario used the drug.

While any illegal drug use by students is a serious problem in need of
redress, drug use here may not be as widespread as some young people
believe.

Indeed, the survey found that 68 per cent of adolescents did not use any
illicit drugs in the past year. Most are drug-free.

A disturbing aspect of the local situation, however, is the fact that BMLSS
teachers were unaware of cocaine use by students. That confirms what the
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health found. Youth aren't accessing the
help they need. Exactly why is an answer we'd all like to have.