DRUG DIRECTOR URGES HELP FOR STUDENTS

WASHINGTON -- The federal drug director is urging schools to offer
help to students who use drugs, not just toss them out. Guidelines in
a report released Thursday by the Office of National Drug Control
Policy urge treatment and counseling for drug-using high schoolers
rather than simply suspending or expelling them.

The guide says schools should "proceed with caution" when testing
students for drugs, making sure they "have a good idea of precisely
what drugs their students are using" before beginning testing.

"The goal is to say we believe we can do a better job of making kids
healthy," said John P. Walters, who directs the office. Kicking
students out of school without treatment can create "drug-using
dropouts," an even bigger problem, the report said.

The advice challenges policies in many districts to automatically
suspend or expel students caught with drugs.

The new policy was announced a day after the agency released a
separate report in Miami, Fla., showing a decline in first-time
marijuana users last year.

While that study found fewer adolescents are first-time marijuana
users than in previous years, it said those who are risk succumbing to
long-term drug addiction.

"Marijuana is not the soft drug," Walters said. He said government,
community agencies and parents must marshal their powers to prevent
and treat marijuana abuse.

According to the study, 62 percent of cocaine users aged 26 or older
were first-time marijuana users by the age of 14.

The idea that marijuana leads to harder drugs was challenged by the
National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

While the study released Thursday provides guidelines, final decisions
on what to do remain in the hands of school districts.

Dan Langan, an Education Department spokesman, said, "The guide is a
tool and it's a helpful tool, but how a district and a school choose
to implement any recommendations in the guide is up to them."

Kathleen Lyons, spokeswoman for the National Education Association,
said her group would back the new guidelines.