Students with drug problems may be sent to residential treatment homes overseas, Education Minister the Hon. Clarence Terceira said yesterday.

Dr. Terceira said it may prove less costly to pay for such treatment than to eventually imprison drug addicts who get in trouble with the law.

"It is better to spend $20,000 overseas than $35,000 on incarceration down the road,'' he told The Royal Gazette .

Dr.

Terceira was expanding on a statement on substance abuse he made in the House of Assembly yesterday, which Shadow Education Minister Ms Jennifer Smith attacked as containing nothing new.

News of drug education and drug treatment programmes in the schools was missing, Ms Smith said.

Dr. Terceira told the House his Ministry recognised "a serious chemical and substance abuse programme exists in our community.'' He also said that "drugs in schools will not be tolerated.'' Ms Smith said she would steal Finance Minister the Hon. David Saul's criticism of the Reply to the Throne Speech and say the Minister's first comment "could have been made by an 11-year-old.'' As for the second comment, "we would have hoped that was the Ministry's policy all along.'' Dr. Terceira said that any school incident involving drugs should immediately be fully investigated and reported to the Ministry. And treatment should be recommended whenever appropriate.

He recently met with Human Affairs Minister the Hon. Jerome Dill and National Drug Commission chairman Mr. Mansfield (Jim) Brock, who has promised to work closely with the Education Ministry.

"With the assistance of the NDC, recommendations will be forwarded shortly to Government,'' Dr. Terceira said.

Ms Smith said she had been waiting for news of a drug education programme in the schools. And she said neither the schools nor Addiction Services had a programme for treating youth.

"We know they need treatment, but where are the programmes in the schools that will help these young people?'' she asked.

Dr. Terceira said a Lions Club life skills programme in the schools is aimed at teaching youngsters to make proper choices.

As for treatment, a problem is that children who are using drugs often come from families where parents are using drugs, Dr. Terceira said. "That is the biggest problem we're facing. We can notify the parents, but the parents are part of the problem.'' Addiction Services mainly treats adults and might not be the proper place to treat students, he said. "It may turn out the best way is a residential unit, which we don't have here,'' he said.

There were such homes in the United States, he said.

Ms Smith said she has heard complaints from secondary school teachers about students bringing pagers and cellular telephones to schools. These had to be seen as evidence of drug dealing and should be banned from the classroom, she said.

Dr. Terceira said Education Permanent Secretary Dr. Marion Robinson has been asked to investigate a report of a student carrying a pager at school. He had no problem with pagers and cellular phones being banned, he said.

Students are "there to learn, not to be paged by anybody,'' he said.

The penalties for student drug offences will soon be spelled out in a new Ministry Code of Discipline, Dr. Terceira said. "It very likely will be suspension in the first instance.''