Time to reassess drug education in schools

If there's one thing guaranteed to stir up the emotions of people of a certain age, it's the idea that modern-day children are bereft of the same morals and values that guided them when they were a similar age.

And yet, when you examine incidents like the one this week which put six Hamilton schoolgirls in hospital, supposedly after they took ecstasy, it's hard to disagree with that argument.

Presuming that the initial suspicions of drug-use around the Fairfield College students are proven to be correct, the incident again raises the spectre of illegal drug use in our schools.

The students, aged between 13 and 15, were reportedly acting so aggressively that staff at Waikato Hospital had to call security guards to control them.

In all, 11 students were thought to be involved in the incident.

Only the most naive would cling to the idea that our schools are completely drug-free.

Nor is it the fault of the schools, most of which do their best to ensure their environments are as safe as possible for their students.

The reality is that for a variety of reasons, illicit drug use now plays a much greater part in the lives of many of our young.

What is particularly alarming, however, is that the problems around drug use seem to be moving to include substances like ecstasy, where previously the worst most educators could expect was to find a student with an illicit cannabis joint.

It's in the nature of young people to experiment, but this is not to condone their actions, or to lessen the requirement on parents, caregivers and educators to do all they can to prevent these people from making bad choices.

It remains to be seen what action Fairfield College will take in the wake of this week's incident.

However, if it is proven that the students took ecstasy during school time, there needs to be an effort to look beyond just the punitive aspects of what comes next.

Assessment is also needed of the processes around drug education, in order to prevent other young people from making the same mistakes, possibly with more serious consequences.

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