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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Head asks parents to pay 50 pounds for drug tests
Auslan Cramb, Scotland Correspondent The Daily Telegraph
Thursday 31 Jan 2002 THE headmaster of a private school has asked parents whose sons have admitted using cannabis to pay £50 towards random drug tests. John Light, rector of Edinburgh Academy, wrote to the parents of several 14-year-old boys at the £7,000-a-year school asking them to sign a consent form agreeing to the tests. If they are positive, the teenagers will be expelled. The £50 fee - which Mr Light hopes parents will deduct from the boys' allowances - will be used to help cover the cost of bringing a private nurse into the school to administer tests. Only pupils who have been caught using drugs will be tested. The move - similar to the random tests thought to apply to Prince Harry at Eton after he admitted smoking cannabis - was prompted by an inquiry that found pupils were using drugs in their spare time. Random testing is rarely used in state schools. The charity Drugscope, which has advised the Government on drug policy, said yesterday that draconian measures were ineffective and could push expelled children into a "downward spiral". But Mr Light said recent events showed that drugs could affect any family and any school in the country, adding: "You can't keep drugs out simply by putting up school railings." In his letter to the parents - who have been "extremely supportive" of the move - he said: "We are totally against the use of drugs. Young men who spend time secreted in basements and in back alleys become introverted and contemptuous. "In addition they are conspicuous targets for serious pushers and dealers. X [the boy's name has been removed to protect his identity] has admitted that he has been involved in illegal activity outwith school time. "We will not permit that habit to be imported into the academy, for it puts younger pupils particularly at risk. X will be permitted to continue his studies only if he consents to a programme of random drug testing . . ." Roger Howard, chief executive of Drugscope, said there was no evidence that drug testing was an effective means of stopping drug use. Its research suggests that 63 per cent of expelled children have been offered cannabis, compared with 25 per cent of children in school, and that 29 per cent of excluded pupils have tried a class A drug, compared to five per cent of children in school. David Stanley, deputy rector at Edinburgh Academy - which is co- educational only in the nursery and in sixth year - said the parents were contacted after the school received information last week following a drugs investigation at another private school in the city. "We had information from an outside source early last week that an incident had happened outside school time with a small number of pupils."
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