The drug tests are part of an initiative by Whangarei's campus cop, Constable Hank Van Engelen. He wants secondary schools to join in as an alternative to suspending and expelling students.

Kicking children out of school did nothing to help them to give up drugs, he said, and often led them to become more involved in Northland's drug culture.

Northland has a high rate of drug-related school suspensions: nine of Whangarei's 18 suspensions in the first two months of 1999 were because of drugs, according to the Ministry of Education.

"Suspension may be enough to shock a small number of students out of further experimentation, but many need greater intervention," said Constable Van Engelen.

Under his initiative students would remain in school if they signed a contract voluntarily to undergo a six-month programme of random drug testing, eight hours of drug education, and drug counselling.

Students who successfully completed the programme would have all records of their offending wiped, just as police records are wiped when a young offender turns 17.

Details, such as finance, are yet to be settled, but Constable Van Engelen hopes Northland Health and the Ministry of Education will contribute.

A lawyer for Youth Law, Claire Trainor, said voluntary drug testing could be effective, but only if enough money was available for counselling as well.

"The whole programme has to be adequately funded, otherwise you are setting students up to fail. Testing must also be carried out in a non-intrusive manner and must respect the student's dignity.

"How tests are conducted and who is present when urine samples are given also needs to be made clear."

So far two Whangarei secondary schools have reacted favourably.

The principal of Kamo High School, Richard Abel, said schools had few resources to deal with student drug use.

"There are counselling programmes, but this initiative brings all the groups together - police, parents, counsellors, medical practitioners and the student - with a written agreement between them. It also means schools can intervene before children are caught with drugs and it becomes a suspension issue."

The chairwoman of the Post Primary Teachers Association principals council, Janice Campbell, was also generally supportive.

Meanwhile, 15 Rotorua police spent yesterday morning talking to students at John Paul College about drugs after the school asked for help.

Sergeant Wally Haumaha said Operation Strike was a worthwhile response to a problem which was becoming endemic among Rotorua schoolchildren.

© Copyright 1999, NZ Herald

Principal Bede Roughton says police will help to get the message across that the college has a zero tolerance towards drugs.

Officers and a drug dog will arrive unannounced to check the school grounds and classrooms and the visits will continue until the end of the year.

Mr Roughton says the boys involved in selling cannabis earlier this term - believed to have been a one-off situation - faced "pretty disastrous consequences" and the police became involved early in the piece.