WHY THE DRUGS VIDEO WORKS

Drugs in schools is back on the agenda. Last week the Government
seized on the imminent publication of a Home Affairs Select Committee
report to launch three new initiatives. One - the so-called "shock
horror" video of the short life of a heroin addict - attracted the
biggest headlines. The Department for Education and Skills is making
the video of Rachel Whitear, the 21-year-old heroin addict who died
in a Devon bedsit, available to all schools that want to show it.
Some critics have criticised it for being too horrific. Will children
be affected by seeing footage of a dead body and a hypodermic syringe
when it is so removed from their own experience?

But the pupils with whom Mary Braid watched the video in Faversham,
Kent described it as thought-provoking rather than shocking. So the
decision to make it available may put some youngsters off taking
drugs who might otherwise have done so.

The second initiative - giving stiffer jail sentences to dealers
pushing drugs outside schools - sounds attractive at first. In
reality, a proposal to describe this offence as aggravated dealing is
likely simply to lead to dealers moving a few hundred yards away from
the school and letting it be known through pupil couriers where they
have gone. In any case, research shows that the courts do hand out
stiffer sentences to those peddling drugs to children. There is no
need for a specific offence on the statute books. This initiative
should not be pursued.

The third is sending out guidance to head teachers and exclusion
appeals panels saying that pupils caught dealing drugs in school can
and should be excluded, even for a first offence. Appeals panels are
being told not to overturn such decisions. At the same time there is
talk of peddling drugs for profit being considered a graver offence
than passing them on socially. As Mary Braid found, that may give a
confused message to youngsters. Far better, then, to leave it to the
individual head teacher to decide on the gravity of offence. Some
pupils may be coaxed away from dealing by being given a second
chance. Others may not. We agree, however, that the appeals panel
should in most cases accept the ruling of the head.