Q: Do you think that it is unconstitutional that a school handbook states that a child will be suspended if a teacher or other school staff thinks they smell marijuana on that child (with no drug testing involved)? Doesn't that affect that teen's rights?

A: Without more details, we are unable to provide legal advice or a definitive answer, but on the surface, the scenario described appears to be problematic in that the student may be being deprived of basic due process rights, including access to a hearing to challenge the suspension, and a procedure predicated on a less-than-reliable methodology (a subjective smell test). This portion of the handbook may not be, strictly speaking, "unconstitutional", but it may violate other state or local laws or regulations.

Q: Should a school notify all parents when there is a drug or alcohol incident at school? Recently a 7th grader was caught with marijuana and a pipe at school. My daughter told me about it. Every parent I talked to had not heard about it. It seems to me that reporting incidents to the school community without names could provide the starting point for communication between parents and students throughout the community. I approached the school regarding this and felt they were more concerned about bad publicity they have received in the past from the local papers about student drug and alcohol use. They would not even tell me the number of offenses that have occurred this year. I don't see how suppressing this information helps anyone.

A: We understand your frustration, but also why the school does not report these kinds of incidents. Schools face impossible pressures nowadays. Drug-related incidents occur in every middle and high school, but schools do not cause drug use by students. The latter is more than anything the fall out from a wider national culture that seems to be fascinated with drugs, including alcohol and mind altering medications. Yet, the media and, yes, parents, are likely to react as if schools were at fault. You deserve credit for wanting to energize the community, but this will not necessarily lead to good policy and quite possibly damage the school. One result could be increasing surveillance and deterrent punishment to the point where the climate of the school resembles a correctional facility more than a place where young people learn and grow. As you already know, the media feeds on bad news, not good news.

If you do want to take on the job of getting parents involved, we hope that it will be in ways that make the school a better place.

On that note, our newest publication, Beyond Zero Tolerance: A Reality-Based Approach to Drug Education and School Discipline is available on our website. We hope it will be helpful to you as you attempt to improve your child's school's policies related to drugs.

Q: I lost a 19-year-old son to an overdose of heroin and cocaine and have another son in recovery. Our town, Springville, Utah, has lost several young people to heroin in the last few years. Our school district will not let us talk about substance abuse to school children. There was only the DARE program in the early years. I am speaking to churches, treatment centers, parents, and even working with University of Utah on a documentary for our PBS station here. How can I get IN to the schools? This is a church-run state and it's hard to get past the major denial here. I do not have young children in school any longer. Any suggestions? Thank you.

A: We are saddened to hear of the loss of your son and the insensitivity of the larger community reflected in the resistance and denial you have encountered. We applaud the fact that, instead of withdrawing into personal grief, you have chosen activism and outreach in the hope of helping others, and we do applaud that choice. The barriers you face in the school and community are obviously formidable. You first need to find allies in this struggle. It's frustrating to be a lone advocate to people in denial, as you well know. There must be some other folks in the community willing to form a support group and perhaps join you at school board meetings and in confronting administrators. An article in the local paper might turn up some volunteers. Also, can you find a church leader sympathetic to your concerns that can see the need for compassion and assistance rather than denial and punishment?

The second point is being sure that you have concrete proposals to offer. For example, if your son's school had a student assistance program, intervention and assistance would have been available early on. You need to learn as much as you can about what programs and services are needed. Our booklet, Beyond Zero Tolerance: A Reality-Based Guide Drug Education and School Discipline presents a comprehensive approach to youth policy related to drugs, and lists resources. Beyond Zero Tolerance is available on our website.

Q: Is there any evidence that using sniffer dogs in schools actually deters students from either bringing drugs to school or using drugs in the first place? The school district I work for in British Columbia, Canada is allowing certain schools to use police sniffer dogs as a deterrent to bringing drugs to school.

A: We know of no evaluations of the effectiveness of drug detecting dogs at schools. There is a large-scale US evaluation of schools doing random drug testing of the entire student body that found no reductions in student drug use. If drug testing does not reduce use, it is highly unlikely that use of sniffer dogs would either. It may seem plausible that sniffer dogs would discourage possession of drugs at school. However, the ingenuity of young people should never be underestimated when it comes to devising ways to get around rules. Some students are likely to think of places at school where drugs can be stashed, others will come to school high to show that they can. Whenever social institutions impose policies that inconvenience, embarrass, or annoy the clients they ostensibly serve, oppositional behavior can be anticipated.

We view sniffer dogs and other intrusive methods of surveillance as incompatible with the promotion of youth learning and personal development. Disciplinary policy should focus on overt behavior. When students are disruptive or otherwise behave inappropriately, assistance and other strategies likely to promote reform are proper tools. Posting surveillance dogs and their handlers at the school door as students arrive in the morning is neither practical nor consistent with to the image of a school as a place where all young people are valued and welcome.

Q: Our school system is in the process of revising its alcohol and drug policy. The main point of contention is the recommendation to eliminate the mandatory 70-day suspension from extra curricular activities for first time offences of intoxication or possession. Many of the principals, and at least one Board of Education member, feel that the mandatory 70-day suspension from extra curricular activities is a deterrent. Do you know of any research to support or refute this?

A: If there is one truth of about all current drug policy it is that things that seem like they ought to work usually don't! Yes, there is considerable research on this topic. Several large studies of school policy suggest that mandatory suspension like other common punitive measures has a serious downside. First, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Resnick, et al., Journal of the American Medical Association, 1997) reported that a sense of "connectedness" with school and parents was the only protective factor against all "health-risk" behaviors except pregnancy, but including alcohol and marijuana use. Parallel to this study, McNeely, et al., Journal of School Heath, 2002) using data from the same research as well as Brown and D'Emedio-Caston, (Evaluation Review, 1995) reported that the more severe the punishment policies around drug use, the lower the sense of connectedness with school among students. Other writers have pointed out that students who are involved in extra curricular activities are (or were) the most connected to their schools to begin with. Will they feel the same way after arbitrary suspension? Worse, such supposedly deterrent punishment policies have been criticized on the grounds that parents and peers will avoid reporting students with substance abuse problems for fear that they would be punished rather than helped. Schools will be more effective if they concentrate on help and assistance when needed rather than automatic punishment without consideration of the needs of the student. To do this schools must shift from criminal justice mentality to a public health approach that focuses on student who need help because their use of alcohol or drugs is harming them or others.