ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Sunday, December 8, 1996               TAG: 9612100173
SECTION: EDITORIAL                PAGE: 2    EDITION: METRO 

SCHOOLS, ILLICIT DRUGS DON'T MIX

THE SUSPENSION this year of an Ohio eighth-grader who gave a classmate Midol may have trivialized school-drug problems in the public's perception. A recent incident involving four students and Ritalin at Bedford Middle School should dissolve that delusion.

Drugs - their easy availability, their widespread acceptance and use - are a society-wide problem, and a particularly threatening one in schools.

Naivete, ignorance or simple immaturity, combined with youngsters' typical myopia in anticipating the potential consequences of dangerous behavior, make it imperative for schools to be free of unauthorized drug use. Schools must insist on it. Parents should demand it.

Schools and their staffs need to show common sense in penalties they attach to technical infractions. But schools unfortunately have liability concerns. Parents need to be assured that, when they send their kids to school, they are sending them someplace safe. And children need both protection and education - including about the dangers of misusing prescription drugs.

That message needs to be pounded home in regard to Ritalin.

The use of this drug has increased sixfold since 1990. It is prescribed for anywhere from 60 percent to 90 percent of children diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, and 3 percent to 5 percent of all children under 18 have ADD, according to federal estimates.

A lot of children are taking this drug, or are seeing other children take this drug, without problem and often with beneficial effects. Such familiarity may make it seem deceptively safe. But Ritalin is a narcotic that, if abused, can even be fatal, especially in combination with alcohol.

The eighth-grader who brought a handful of Ritalin pills to Bedford Middle School last month, and his classmates who joined him in a scheme not to use the drug but to sell it, were suspended. All but one of the four were charged by police.

The hope is that they, and others, will learn the seriousness of the offense.

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