Pubdate: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 Source: Kenora Daily Miner and News (CN ON) Copyright: 2000 Kenora Daily Miner and News Contact: P.O. Box 1620, Kenora, Ontario P9N 3X7 Canada Fax: (807) 468-4318 Website: http://www.bowesnet.com/dailyminer/ Author: Melissa Ridgen DRUGS BEING KEPT OUT OF SCHOOLS In the first month of the 2000-01 school year police charged 11 students from the city's two high schools for illegally possessing marijuana. Beaver Brae principal Christine Frank says the public high school is working "very closely with (Joint Forces Unit) drug investigators to keep drugs out of the school. "(The investigators) could be here 24-hours a day, seven days a week as far as I'm concerned. It's to the benefit of all the students in our school that we keep drugs out of here." Of the 11 charges, Det. Staff Sgt. John Horne, who heads the drug unit, says none have been laid on school property. "The drug investigators are working with the schools to address concerns about drug use and the arrests and charges have all occurred off school property, involving students at both high schools," he says. If caught on school property with contraband, a student faces an automatic 10-day suspension at the public high school while St. Thomas Aquinas vice-principal Bob Valentini says 10 days would be a minimum suspension for such an offence at the Catholic school. "It would be an indefinite suspension and could be an expulsion," he says. Drug investigators began working closely with schools this year in response to reports over concerns about students using drugs. "There are concerns from staff and students because a lot of good students are messing themselves up doing drugs," Horne says. "It's not hard to tell who's using. They come to school bright-eyed and ready to go and come back in the afternoon slow and lazy." Signs of marijuana use, according to the drug unit, include having a distorted sense of time, slurred speech, memory loss, loss of co-ordination and lack of motivation. - --- MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager