Parents ask for school drug search

Press, 4 August 1976, Page 2

Parents ask for school drug search

PA Blenheim; ) A group of Blenheim par-! lents has asked the police to! I bring trained dogs to local {schools to search for illegal {drugs. The Marlborough {Boys’ College Parent-Teacher {Association has written to the Mayor of Blenheim (Mr S. P. Harling), asking for greater use of specially trained dogs to search suspected -reas, including schools. A meeting of the IP.T.A., attended by 120 parents, after hearing a panel (discussion on the problem of {drugs and alcoholism, passed ia resolution, "that in light of the growing drug problem more dogs should be trained to search suspected areas,! including schools, and there! should be more education in|< schools on the effects of; drugs and alcohol.” Mr' Harling, who is chairman of) the special committee of the ' Municipal Association that 1 deals with problems of van- I dalism, said that at. the asso- v ciation’s last conference his! committee had been asked to! seek a solution to the prob- • lent of drugs in schools. He i ! said the police had had rea-: c sonable success in catching)' “pushers,” but his. idea was), to go after the people buying drugs as well, “making! 1 it so difficult that pushers) will have no customers.” Id He welcomed the move by'h parents, as he envisaged th'e'c

(uproar that would be caused: (if the police went to a, {school with trained drug; ■ dogs if parents had not, 1 ; •requested it. “From now on) ■ more P.T.A.s should ask for) this police co-operation,” Mr I; Harling said. Teachers were; often reluctant to admit j

There was a problem at their {schools, he said. There was (little they could do about it, land they felt that the good name of their school could {be in jeopardy. "We want {to take the burden off the teachers. It is a problem of parents,” he said.