Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Editorials

News about drug bust is both good and bad

The bad news is an undercover sting operation at Los Gatos High School led to arrest warrants last week for six people. The good news is there were only six. That might sound like a proverbial news "spin," but the fact is that in 1994, a sting resulted in 23 student arrests.

Police Chief Larry Todd says the undercover agent who was impersonating a student found he had to work hard to buy drugs on campus. That suggests that while drugs are still on campus, the problem isn't rampant.

Sometimes we have to take our good news where we find it.

School administrators, whose job is often a thankless one, walk a fine line balancing the demands of parents who insist that the school keep the campus drug-free regardless of the cost to student rights, while another camp demands the school administration respect the rights of students at any cost.

In the best of all possible worlds, breathalyzers and drug-sniffing dogs would have no place on a high school campus. And the new guy in third-period history class shouldn't turn out to be an undercover cop.

But this is not the best of all possible worlds. Last May, Community Against Substance Abuse released results of a drug survey that showed students consumed more drugs than they did four years earlier. The survey also showed that seniors--who took the same survey as freshmen--had dramatically increased their consumption of alcohol, marijuana and hallucinogens.

There also was an increase in the number of students who use drugs at school events:15 percent of the 1996 senior class reported using drugs at school, while 9 percent of the 1994 senior class used drugs on campus.

Following the release of those results, school administrators began to consider how they could step up efforts to keep the campus free of drugs. Bringing the drug-sniffing dog on campus this year was a direct response to the results of last year's drug survey.

Beyond a certain point, there really isn't anything a school can do to keep young people from using and selling drugs. What schools must do, however, is ensure that the school environment is safe and drug-free.

While no arrests would have been the best news, this undercover operation suggests that the preventive measures the school is taking are beginning to work. And that's good news.

Happy Holidays

As we come to the end of 1997, we want to take a moment to express our appreciation to our readers and our advertisers who make it possible for us to do the work we love in a vital and caring community. It is truly a pleasure for us to bring you the news of the community each week and to serve as a forum for the exchange of ideas.

The staff of the Los Gatos Weekly-Times wishes you and yours the happiest of holiday seasons.

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