FEDERAL DRUG OFFICE SUGGESTS KEEPING USERS IN SCHOOL

WASHINGTON - The federal drug office director is urging schools to help,
not just expel, students who use drugs.

Guidelines in a report released today by the Office of National Drug
Control Policy urge treatment and counseling for drug-using high schoolers
rather than simple expulsion or suspension.

"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 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 that 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, based in Washington
D.C., which said only one out of every 104 first-time marijuana users ever
uses heroin or cocaine.

Though the study provides guidelines for handling student drug users, final
decisions on what to do remain in the hands of school districts.

In Lexington, Dunbar and Tates Creek high schools randomly drug test
athletes and the other three public high schools have considered such a policy.

"If a youngster is found to have a positive test, their parents are
contacted and there are referral agencies available so we can make sure the
student athlete gets some help and support," said Ken Cox, Fayette County's
high school director.

"It is not intended to be punitive," Cox said. "It is intended to make sure
that students can perform safely at at optimal performance levels."

Some student athletes in Fayette have told their coaches and teachers that
the drug testing policies give them an excuse when they're trying to resist
peer pressure to use drugs.

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

"That's what we would endorse, helping kids, not simply punishing them,"
she said. "It doesn't do anybody any good just to take a drug test and kick
the kid out of school; where's he going to go? It doesn't solve anyone's
problem and may in fact worsen it."