.bmp)
.bmp)
ILLICIT drugs are rife in NSW schools, with official reports showing police have investigated cocaine and narcotics dealing in playgrounds - with at least one suspected case of ice possession. An investigation by The Daily Telegraph reveals the case of three primary students taking ecstasy at Windang, near Wollongong, is only one of hundreds of cases of school drug use that escape public attention each year.There have been 766 children aged 10 to 17 recorded as persons of interest in drug crime during school hours at both public and private schools over the past three years, figures compiled by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research show.Included in the figures reported by police are 74 drug incidents in Government primary schools. Documents on specific incidents obtained under Freedom of Information show that on February 15 this year at a high school in the Eastwood area police asked staff to search students for drugs after three children ingested ecstasy supplied by a Year 8 pupil. Parents were told to take the children - a Year 7 girl, a Year 8 girl and a Year 7 boy - home "to monitor their health and wellbeing". On December 14 last year, a Year 8 girl at a high school in the Camden area, in Sydney's southwest, was found to be "unstable" and with dilated pupils. She claimed to have taken "speed" but this could not be confirmed. A Year 9 boy was accused of dealing cannabis to other students at a high school in the New England district, in the state's north, on November 9. In one of the most disturbing incidents, on December 21 last year, a Year 7 boy at a high school in the Rosehill area handed over a plastic bag containing white crystals, claimed to be "ice". Over the past three years, official figures show there have been nine students caught dealing or trafficking in ecstasy. The startling extent of drugs in schools can be revealed as Prime Minister John Howard questioned why it had been become "virtually a criminal offence" to smoke cigarettes yet there there was a softening of resolve to fight drugs. Commenting on the arrest of West Coast Eagles star Ben Cousins, Mr Howard called for an "uncompromising social condemnation of drugs".As in the days of Noah....
