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SCOTLAND DEBATE
Drug use in schools is undoubtedly increasing. But is
a zero-tolerance approach from teachers the best way to put pupils on
the straight and narrow?
Stoned at school
IT is lunchtime and a group of teenage school pupils
are huddled in the corner of the playground. They may appear to be
sharing a sneaky cigarette but, according to new statistics obtained by
the Sunday Herald, they are just as likely to be smoking cannabis. The
prevalence of substance misuse in wider society has seen drugs spread
from the streets to the playground. The growing problem was dramatically
highlighted earlier this year when an 11-year-old girl was found slumped
in a primary school in the east end of Glasgow after smoking heroin.
The case – while recognised as extreme – provoked a
national outcry, with politicians demanding a crackdown on drug abuse
among young people. However new figures obtained by the Sunday Herald
from Scotland’s 32 local authorities under freedom of information
legislation show that drugs are being taken in schools on an almost
daily basis. A total of 127 instances of pupils being under the
influence of, in possession of, or excluded because of drugs were
recorded in 20 local authority areas in 2005. In North Lanarkshire,
Aberdeen City and East Dunbartonshire, which were only able to provide
figures on exclusions for all types of substance abuse (including
solvent abuse and alcohol), a further 121 cases were recorded.
Aberdeenshire and Edinburgh said they could not
provide the requested statistics, while the remainder of the councils
failed to respond within the 20-day limit set out under the FoI Act.
Despite widespread fears about teen binge-drinking, the Sunday Herald
found that incidences involving drugs in schools were four times more
common than those involving alcohol. It also emerged that the drug at
the centre of the majority of instances reported by local authorities
was cannabis.
Nikki Fraser, project manager of Highlands drugs
advice group Blast! says she has noticed “a lot” of drug use going on at
“all schools”. However, she warns that teenagers are experimenting with
many drugs other than cannabis. “I don’t wish for people to make an
assumption it is just cannabis,” she says. “We’re talking about
street-bought ‘benzos’, like valium and temazepam, and ecstacy,
amphetamines and solvents as well. “Cannabis is the main one and it is
happening in the majority of schools, although they won’t want to admit
that.” Although Fraser’s claims that young people are taking more drugs
than ever are based on anecdotal evidence, they are backed up by a
recent survey carried out by the Edinburgh-based drugs project Crew
2000. It found that more youngsters had tried cannabis than nicotine in
the past year.
John Arthur, manager of Crew 2000, claims that drugs
are attractive to young people because they are often both affordable
and accessible. He points out that the price of cannabis – at around £15
per ounce of resin – has remained the same for many years, while other
drugs such as ecstasy have fallen in price and can be bought for as
little as £1 to £3 per pill. “Drug use has increased among young people
over the years, as has the availability of certain substances such as
cannabis, which I suspect is the main drug showing up in schools,”
Arthur says. “It’s pretty much ubiquitous in Scotland. “Young people are
reflecting substance use in society and it is more prevalent now than it
ever has been, with substance use normalised in many families and
communities.”
Max Cruickshank, a youth work consultant, fears that
the drug problem in schools is wider than that which goes on under the
noses of teachers. “I think the number of pupils turning up in school
with drugs to sell is very, very small,” he says. “But what I would say
is that the number of children turning up at school under the influences
of substances – particularly cannabis and alcohol – is much higher than
the schools would recognise. “There is also that kind of Monday morning
thing, where kids have been boozed up or drugged up at weekends and
Monday or Tuesday is almost a wipeout. Some teachers would recognise
that, others wouldn’t pick it up.”
Teachers themselves agree there is a “significant”
problem of drugs in schools now, but argue that it is difficult to
pinpoint exactly how widespread it is. David Eaglesham, general
secretary of the Scottish Secondary Teachers Association (SSTA), says:
“We have no evidence as we obviously don’t test how many pupils may be
under the influence of drink or drugs in schools. “We know that there
are pupils [who are under the influence] from time to time – on
occasions it may be a significant number, on other occasions it may be
almost non-existent. “But it is a significant problem and something that
teachers are aware of and schools generally are aware of.” However
Eaglesham also highlights that while, in some cases, a pupil’s behaviour
can point to them having taken drugs, in others it can be impossible for
teachers to ascertain. “There will be marginal cases where the kid has
taken some sort of sedative drug and just gets drowsy and inactive and
doesn’t do very much,” he says. “There are occasions when it is hard to
tell whether they are under the influence of drugs or not, or whether it
is just lack of sleep or playing computer games until four in the
morning or something.”
Arguably, for some pupils who experiment with cannabis
out of teenage curiosity, there will be few long-term effects. But for
others who regularly use drugs, the consequences can go far beyond just
one missed lesson, with their education and subsequently their future
career suffering. Many schools will also report drug incidents to the
police, which could have long-term implications, especially for pupils
over 16 who may end up with a criminal record.
According to Detective Sergeant Gill Wood, national
drugs co-ordinator at the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency, the
possibility of gaining a criminal record is one of the key issues that
police officers highlight to young people when carrying out drug
education work in schools. “One of the things that drug education
officers say to try and make it meaningful to kids is that this could
affect your travel if you want to go to the [United] States, which is
very strict about taking anyone in with a drugs marker,” she says. “Most
[work] places do ask people to declare a criminal record and then it
would be a matter for the employer to decide if that was a difficulty
for them, depending what the post was. “There are long-term implications
for people when what they might consider to be a very minor or
short-lived interest in their lives at a young age comes back to haunt
them later on.”
Wood agrees that there has been a rise in drug use
among young people which reflects a general escalation throughout
society as a whole, but she insists that underage drinking is still a
more widespread problem than drugs. “I’m not surprised that there may be
more cases recorded in relation to drug misuse than there would be in
relation to alcohol misuse,” she says. “My own view is that I think
unfortunately there is a kind of cultural acceptance more of underage
drinking than there is of drug misuse. “Also I think the legal status
very much comes into it in that I think schools feel less inhibited
about dealing with cases of underage drinking informally themselves, if
you like, than they might about drugs which are illegal.”
A zero-tolerance approach to drugs is increasingly
being introduced by schools. Evidence from statistics collected by the
Scottish Executive on school exclusions suggests that more pupils are
being banned from schools because of drugs. Latest figures show that the
number of exclusions for abusing a substance other than alcohol – which
can include sniffing glue or aerosol cans – rose by more than 15% in
2004-5, compared to the previous year. But not everyone believes a
hardline approach is best for the pupils concerned. Petra Maxwell,
spokes woman for charity DrugScope, argues that while exclusion may be
appropriate in some cases, for instance where pupils have been caught
selling class A drugs, for the majority of occasions it is best if the
problem can be dealt with in schools. “It can be tempting sometimes for
parents and teachers to be seen to be really tough and have a
zero-tolerance policy on drugs,” she says. “But we know that truants and
excluded pupils have much higher rates of drug use than those young
people who are in schools. “So actually by excluding the pupils you make
them more at risk of going on to develop problems with drugs because
they are pushed outside the system. “If they are in touch with schools
they are more likely to get picked up and signposted on for help as
appropriate.”
Dave Liddell, director of the Scottish Drugs Forum,
also raises concerns about pupils being excluded from school due to drug
abuse. “Obviously there is pressure from parents and local communities
to take a very hard line on incidents of drug use, but there are bigger
issues for those young people where drug use may be the symptom of a
number of underlying problems they are experiencing,” he says. “Whereas
with adults the problem tends to be pretty entrenched, young people’s
drug use – and particularly chaotic drug use – can be a symptom of
underlying problems and those are the things that need to be addressed
for a person.” But while Liddell says that schools should be referring
young people to appropriate services, he acknowledges it is not always
easy. “Many of the agencies struggle in terms of providing services,
particularly for young people,” he says. “There are a small number of
specialist services for young people but it remains an issue that across
the country there aren’t sufficient services to respond to that early
drug use.”
Eaglesham, on the other hand, argues that a long-term
cultural shift may be required, as happened with smoking. “There is a
general pressure not to smoke now and kids tend to go along with that,”
he says. “Drugs will maybe move in that direction too. “There is no one
single magic solution. But there is no excuse for doing nothing.”
Judith Duffy
30 April
http://www.sundayherald.com/55466
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