Students Still Feel Sting of November Drug Sweep : Schools: Mira Costa High officials applaud undercover operation that led to five arrests. But critics say crackdown bred suspicion and resentment while doing little to curb students’ use of narcotics.

Many students at Mira Costa High School are anxious these days. They look over their shoulders in the hallway, wondering whom they can trust.

“It’s really sad, because new people are totally under suspicion,” said one 10th-grader at the Manhattan Beach high school. “There’s a new girl in my math class who looks older than she is, and people think she’s a narc.”

But the narcs are gone, officials say. Gone since November, when five Mira Costa students were summoned to Principal Darlene Gorey’s office and arrested for allegedly selling marijuana off campus to two undercover officers.

The undercover operation by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies came at the request of the Manhattan Beach Unified School District board after a 1993 survey raised a red flag about drugs at Mira Costa. Drugs came up repeatedly as a concern among teachers and parents. Some students estimate that at least half of the student body uses drugs, including alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, LSD, nitrous oxide and psilocybin mushrooms.

Although Mira Costa’s problem may not be any worse than that of other area high schools, drug use seems inconsistent with the school’s academic reputation. In a state competition for high schools, Mira Costa was named a California Distinguished School. The school has five national merit semifinalists this year, and about 80% of the students go on to college, including 40% who go to four-year colleges.

The undercover officers, a man and a woman, posed as Mira Costa students from September to November. “They looked 35 years old, but they dressed and acted like teen-agers,” said one student. According to school district Supt. Jerry Davis, the undercover agents and the arrested students supplied the district with the names of 20 students suspected of being part of drug circles. School officials contacted these students and their parents. The students weren’t disciplined, but the families were given information about school- and community-based drug abuse prevention programs.

All five students who were arrested are accused of selling small bags of marijuana, averaging a gram, or the equivalent of two to three joints, said Lt. Ruddie Jefferson of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Narcotics Bureau. All the transactions took place off campus, he said.

Since their arrests, four of the five teen-agers have been expelled and are now attending other Los Angeles County high schools. As a so-called special-needs student, the fifth avoided expulsion but is required to complete his high school diploma in an El Camino College program. He will not be charged, officials said.

Three of the students denied charges of selling marijuana; the fourth was scheduled to be arraigned Feb. 23 in Juvenile Court.

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Some teachers, parents and students at the high school regard the two-month undercover operation with skepticism. They say students who sell harder drugs were not among those arrested.

But school officials were pleased that the officers found no dealing on campus. “What we wanted to make sure was that drug use and dealing is not taking place on our campus, that students can concentrate in a drug-free environment,” Davis said. “But we’re not naive. We know that drug use is a community issue.”

Jaime Mancilla, a Spanish teacher and adviser for Friday Night Live, a stay-sober club, said that among many students on campus, it is more popular to use drugs or to be friends with drug users than for students to proclaim themselves drug-free.

Mancilla said he recently overheard one of his students talking about getting stoned over the weekend. “She is revered by all of her friends,” he said.

One apparent result of the undercover operation is a sense of mistrust and suspicion among students. Some youths on the list of students who were suspected of belonging to drug circles claim they were unfairly singled out.

“I shouldn’t be treated like a juvenile delinquent and categorized as a drug user because I wear ‘60s-style clothes and listen to the Grateful Dead and the Doors,” one student said.

Other students maintain that in their effort to curb drug use, officials have turned Mira Costa into a prison. They point to a handful of full-time campus supervisors who patrol the grounds with walkie-talkies and a new chain-link fence as examples of a jail-like atmosphere. Administrators say the fencing is intended to stop weekend vandalism.

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Nevertheless, school officials readily acknowledge that they run a tight ship.

At football games and proms, the vice principal operates a Breathalyzer for students suspected of being intoxicated. A number of education programs have been launched to fight drug use: mandatory anti-drug lessons in freshman English and health; Red Ribbon Week, a national anti-drug program, and a program in which seniors sign “contracts” pledging to stay sober at senior events.

A full-time special-needs counselor works on campus, and a substance abuse specialist visits regularly. Administrators are also calling on parents to become more involved in the anti-drug effort.

“Parents show up at the PTA meetings and get excited about the bust, but it seems to go in one ear and out the other,” Principal Gorey said. “You hear of parents renting rooms at the Radisson and buying kegs of beer. There are young teens using amphetamines to keep their weight down so they will fit into prom dresses, and students hanging out at bars at 1 a.m. We need the support of the community.”

Compared to other high schools, Mira Costa’s drug problem is relatively low, Jefferson said. But the issue of drugs has been constantly coming up, and the school board and teachers thought it was a large problem, he said. “The question had to be answered as to whether or not they had a problem,” he said of the undercover operation. “We had an obligation to find out.”

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He said officials are relatively sure the problem does not involve a large number of students.

In the aftermath of the drug arrests, Mira Costa parents have met to discuss parent volunteer programs at the Manhattan Beach police station. “There’s a sense now of keeping aware and keeping our antennae up,” said PTA President Linda Avignon. “The drug that people are putting their head in the sand about is alcohol. But you have both extremes. Some parents think the problem is worse than it actually is and others don’t think there’s a problem.”

Some teachers say the expectations of high academic performance may contribute to drug and alcohol use among students.

“For Mira Costa students, the pressure to get good grades and go right to four-year universities may contribute to the drug use,” Mancilla said. “Each person handles pressure differently. Like many adults, it’s easiest to buy a six-pack and get drunk on a Friday night.”

Officials acknowledge that the recent arrests did not eradicate drugs at Mira Costa, but they say they are convinced that it will have a long-term deterrent effect. “‘There are still references made to the last drug bust that was more than a decade ago,” Jefferson said.