Spotlight on Drug Use at Arcadia High

“Arcadia High has a drug problem. Although many people don’t recognize this problem, or ignore it, it is there.”

With this introduction, a May 10 story in the Arcadia High School student newspaper provided what it called a behind-the-scenes look at drug use on campus.

Based on interviews with two dozen students, many of them drug users, the Apache Pow Wow article quoted youngsters who spoke of smoking marijuana before classes or during lunch breaks. One teen-ager said LSD, a hallucinogen, was available everywhere.

On Wednesday, five students were arrested on charges of possession and sale of marijuana, LSD and cocaine after an investigation by an undercover police officer who spent three months posing as a student.

Timing Coincidental

Although police and school officials say the timing of the arrests and the newspaper story was coincidental, the attention of students and educators has turned to the extent of drug abuse among the school’s 2,200 students.

“There’s no (drug) epidemic,” police Chief Neal R. Johnson said just hours after the arrests.

He noted that in 1981, 24 students and five adults were arrested after a similar undercover investigation. That was the first time arrests had been made for drug possession or sales on the campus, he said. Two years later, two more students were arrested. Last Wednesday’s arrests were the first since then, Johnson said.

“It’s less than what I’d anticipated,” Johnson said. “But, of course, any time you have one drug sale on a high school campus, you have a problem.”

Attended Classes

The undercover officer, a boyish-looking 23-year-old, had attended classes since February. On 15 to 20 occasions, Johnson said, the officer purchased a total of $250 to $300 worth of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine and LSD.

The students arrested, four 16-year-olds and one 17-year-old, were referred to juvenile authorities, and Johnson said they soon will face both felony and misdemeanor counts of selling and possession.

The investigation began, Johnson said, because of the concerns of schools Supt. Stephen A. Goldstone, Principal Jerry E. Barshay and the Police Department.

Barshay, like Johnson, was surprised that the officer did not uncover more illegal drug sales. Still, the principal said, illegal drug use is limited to a small percentage of the student body.

“There’s a subculture that uses chemicals outside of school and maybe in school at times,” Barshay said. “But the majority of kids here aren’t chemically dependent.”

‘Socially Accepted’

The real problem, he said, is alcohol. “It’s a socially accepted drug, and it’s so woven into our social makeup that it’s hard to resist. You turn on television and they’re not advertising marijuana. They’re advertising alcohol.”

The Apache Pow Wow article on drug abuse noted that some Arcadia students often abuse alcohol in combination with other drugs, principally marijuana. “The most popular (drug) is alcohol,” the story said. But the authors, feature editors Bailey Korell and Jocelyn Stoufer, said they wanted to focus strictly on illegal drugs because they thought that parents, students and educators were denying the extent of marijuana, cocaine and LSD abuse among students.

Still, said Korell, a 16-year-old junior, “we didn’t want to give some total, heavy moral lesson.”

“We just wanted to give information and say ‘it’s here’ and that there’s a lot more than everyone thinks there is,” said Stoufer, an 18-year-old senior.

Surprised by LSD

The two said they were surprised at how easy it was to find fellow students who regularly used drugs, including those who used them or bought them from friends at school. Likewise, they said they were astonished at the availability of LSD. In photographs accompanying the Pow Wow story, one student was shown in his home with a dose of LSD on his tongue, and another was shown holding LSD available for sale in a school bathroom.

Although the two-page story was the talk of the campus, it did not appear on the front page but rather inside, on the feature pages. After that, however, stories appeared in at least two local newspapers and generated even more talk about the issue. Chief Johnson requested 10 copies of the story the day after it appeared. Teachers made it required reading for students in class.

Perhaps the most controversial statement, later featured in stories by local newspapers, came from a girl called Jane. Her real name, like those of the other students quoted in the Pow Wow story, was not disclosed.

“Arcadia has such a big drug problem and all the Arcadia families and PTA are in such denial that it’s sickening,” she said.

Problem Not Ignored

School officials, student leaders and police have been quick to point out that the problem is not being ignored.

“I don’t think anybody sits here and denies that there’s a drug problem,” said pep squad commissioner Stephenie Green, an 18-year-old senior.

“It’s not that the entire school has the problem,” said student body president Kevin Hearn, a 17-year-old senior. Although Hearn said he has seen students on campus who appeared to be on drugs, he has never seen anyone taking or selling drugs at school.

Barshay said: “Our PTA has publicized information about drugs and alcohol, telling parents to keep your kids away from them. (The PTA) has been very supportive.”

Voluntary Testing

Likewise, Barshay said, the response to a 2-year-old voluntary drug-testing program on campus has been good. He said Arcadia High was the first San Gabriel Valley high school to institute such a program.

In addition, he said, the school offers counseling programs, and more than 1,000 students who attended this weekend’s junior-senior prom signed contracts that they would not use alcohol or other drugs during the prom.

Still, the Pow Wow article suggested that the anti-drug programs were not effective for some students. And Korell and Stoufer said “scare tactics” and overstatements by adults can backfire by making drugs an alluring, forbidden fruit.

“(Drug abuse) is going to go on forever, unless there’s some kind of great religious crusade and everyone turns holy,” Korell said. “I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s nothing that can be done except that every individual has to choose that ‘I’ve had enough of this.’ ”

For him, Korell said, the most persuasive case against alcohol abuse is that a drunk driver killed his uncle.

Despite the problems faced by the 48,500 residents of the “Community of Homes,” as Arcadia is known, Korell said it is important to put them in perspective. “At least we don’t have gangs that go kill people because they’re burned out on crack.”