By Catherine Brennan
Teachers and students are reacting with shock to Bob Chiarelli’s claim that 40 to 60 per cent of the city’s student body could be smoking pot during the course of the school day.
While police and principals are waiting until the municipal election is over to comment, studies, and student estimates, indicate Chiarelli’s numbers are much higher than reality.
When pressed on the source of the numbers, Chiarelli told CTV that he received the information from a vice-principal who was apparently talking about one particular day at their school. The school was later identified as John McCrae High School in Barrhaven.
Chiarelli made the comment on pot use as a part of his election platform crime strategy, which focuses on youth crimes. He told the Ottawa Citizen that drug use, especially marijuana, is a problem at some schools.
He wants to increase the number of full-time school resource officers, , from 22 to 33. This would allow for one officer for every 10 schools instead 15.
According to the 2005 Ontario Student Drug Use Study, in which 7, 726 students from Grades seven to 12 were anonymously polled, just over a quarter of students reported using marijuana. Thirty-one per cent reported trying it at least once in their lifetime. Just over 13 per cent of the respondents admitted to daily marijuana use.
Several students at Lisgar Collegiate Institute expressed shock when told of Chiarelli’s comment. “Of course people sometimes get high before class, or I guess more so during lunch,” said one female Grade 11 student, surrounded by a group of giggling friends, who appeared nervous when asked about the level of drug use. “Many of the older students have, at least once. But certainly not every day.”
Lisgar students in an informal poll estimated the number of students high at school to be between five to 10 per cent. The estimated figure by students outside of Immaculata Catholic High School was higher at 15 to 20 per cent.
“Of course there is marijuana,” said one Grade 12 student, nonchalantly digging through his backpack while responding. “We’re all kids, we’ve all done drugs.”
Students are not the only ones who noticed the staggering difference between the reality and the comments by Chiarelli.
Mike Foster, the owner of Crosstown Traffic, a shop that sells drug paraphernalia near Glebe Collegiate, says that he sees only a small number of high school students in its clientele.
He believes that the extra police resource officers suggested by Chiarelli would be better spent in the downtown core, where harder drugs have become an issue.
“I think that Chiarelli is just trying to score easy political points, using teenagers and marijuana at the forefront rather than dealing with the real issues in the city.”
He is not alone. Many believe that Chiarelli’s comments had nothing to do with education and drug policy, and everything to do with the fact that he is in the heated last stages of the election.
For this reason, principals and teachers have issued a unified “no comment” on the mayor’s statements, fearing that a comment would indicate political affiliation one way or another.
Sharlene Hunter, a communications officer with the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, was quick to differentiate between what she calls “the politics of youth crime and education” as presented by Chiarelli, and the real issues themselves.
“As a school, our eyes are not closed to drugs. We want to help. But our job is to educate, not to police.”