GOVERNOR ROUNDS OPPOSES DRUG LENIENCY BILL

PIERRE -(AP)- An effort to give students a second chance in sports and other
extracurricular activities if caught with marijuana ran into an unexpected
wrinkle Wednesday.

A spokesman for Gov. Mike Rounds said he is strongly opposed to HB1079,
which could cut the current one-year suspension to just 60 school days if
students get drug assessments or treatment.

School boards would get to decide if students deserve early reinstatement.
Only those convicted of marijuana possession or use would be eligible;
marijuana sales and other drugs would continue to bring automatic one-year
suspensions.

Existing law, which has been on the books for five years, requires permanent
suspensions from extracurricular activities for repeat drug violators.
HB1079 would not change that.

Those who support the bill said students who foul up once should not be cast
aside for an entire year. Some of them may never return to those activities,
and some may drop out of school, said people who favor leniency.

''Activities help kids stay in school and be successful,'' said Rep. Casey
Murschel, R-Sioux Falls, prime sponsor of the measure.

Suspensions from activities are in addition to criminal penalties imposed on
students, she pointed out. Students not involved in activities do not face
that additional punishment, Murschel said. The bill would have affected 260
students last year, she said.

Wade Pogany, a state Education Department official, told the Senate
Judiciary Committee that the governor does not want to send the wrong
message to kids about drugs.

''We cannot weaken any message about drugs,'' Pogany said.

''The message on drugs . . . needs to be clear, very clear. It needs to be
that drugs are illegal, drugs are dangerous, and in the governor's words,
'are out of bounds when it comes to extracurricular activities.' "