OLYMPIC MJ DEBATE: DON'T WORRY ABOUT THE KIDS

If parents worry that giving Ross Rebagliati his medal back sends a message
to kids that drugs are OK, They're Wrong

Like a lot of Canadian high school students, when Andrew Nelson takes a
break from studies and hits the slopes, he brings his snowboard. And when
he goes, the
18-year-old Royal Vale High School student knows that part of
theanti-conformist culture of "boarders" he'll find at the hill is illegal
drugs.

It's a fact that came to international prominence this week, when British
Columbia snowboarder Ross Rebagliati tested positive for marijuana and was
briefly stripped of his gold medal at the Nagano Olympics.

But for young snowboarding adepts such as Nelson, along with many other
kids who don't even practise the sport, the issue of recreational drug use
by athletes and other role models is simply a non-starter.

"I've been to a lot of (snowboarding) parties and stuff like that, and I'm
sure that a lot of drugs are going on, but I don't think it's that big of a
deal," said Nelson, whose father happens to head the National Ski Industry
Association.

If parents worry that giving Rebagliati his medal back sends a message to
kids that drugs are OK, they're wrong, Nelson said.

"If people are going to smoke dope, they're not going to wait to see some
guy do it on a ski hill - they're just going to do it."

In school corridors and classrooms yesterday, students cheered when
Rebagliati got his medal back; the consensus was that dope hadn't helped
him get the medal in the first place, so he deserved to win.

"Basically, I think the rules for the Olympics have gone way too far concerning
drugs," said Samantha Goldwater-Adler, 16. For young people, marijuana
isn't the issue - "it's something that lots of teenagers do as a passing
thing, to test their boundaries, like coming home an hour late from curfew.
"As far as drugs go, it's one of the least harmful."

It's little wonder that students back Rebagliati, said Cathy Schreiber, a
guidance counsellor at Royal Vale and at Royal West Academy, in Montreal
West.

"People doing this sport are considered to be anti-conformist - it's part
of the whole image thing," - and adolescent kids relate to that, she said.
Off the island of Montreal, Grade 11 students at Hudson High School debated
the pros and cons of the Rebagliati case in class Wednesday.

"Most of us thought he should get his medal back," said Jessica King, 16,
whose economics and moral-and-religious education class was turned into a
forum for the case.

Teacher Ted Duchene asked his students to put themselves in the shoes of
both Rebagliati and the International Olympic Committee, and argue the pros
and cons.

In the end, the students sided with the athlete. "Because, one, it wasn't a
performance-enhancing drug, second, it was a long time ago, before the
Olympics even started, and third, it was such a low amount that it's
possible he could have just been in the room and got it from that," King
said yesterday. "We believe totally in `innocent until proven guilty,' and
you can't prove anything.

So he definitely was right to get it back." Marijuana is no longer the
taboo it used to be - it's almost mainstream, King said. "That's the big
issue. It's not
like he was taking crack or speed or anything - it's just a small
mainstream drug." Duchene had also asked his class to consider the economic
implications of Rebagliati's medal-stripping.

"This young man had the potential of being on every Wheaties box in Canada, he
was in line to receive probably millions of dollars in endorsements - he
won the loto, but then he lost the ticket." The students were able to see
the implication, a sign of their mature approach to reasoned argument,
Duchene said.

In other schools, students' approach to the drug issue has also been
mature, said McGill University child psychologist Jeffrey Derevensky. High
school students aren't shocked by "soft" drug use - but the Rebagliati
episode underscored the fact society still doesn't condone it.

"Some of them come away from this with the lesson that, well, they didn't
take away the gold medal so therefore marijuana's not such a big deal,"
Derevensky said yesterday. "And the other group is saying, no, it is a big
deal; look
how it can come back and haunt you; you really should be drug-free."
Kids still have "some major concerns" about drug use, he added.

The 1996 cocaine death of Trafalgar School for Girls student Laurel
Faigelman, 16, led to a new abolitionist tendency in the student
body, he said. "That really set off a whole wake-up call to the kids,
saying, you know, you can't keep doing this. And many of the kids who
knew her, swore off (drugs) as a result."