CHILDREN as young as nine have been caught possessing, supplying or dealing drugs at NSW schools with some students hallucinating and collapsing under the influence.
The youngest pupil found with drugs is a Year 4 boy whose teacher seized dried cannabis leaves from his school bag.
And a mother in Sydney's Inner West complained that her Year 8 daughter had her food spiked with cannabis during a cooking class.
The girl ate two cookies before she was asked by her cooking partner, a Year 8 male student, how she felt. The boy told her he put cannabis into the mix.
After falling ill the girl's mother was contacted to come and collect her.
In the Illawarra region, three Year 9 girls are also reported to have consumed hash cookies at school and another girl complained of feeling "dizzy and lethargic".
The Daily Telegraph can reveal almost 90 serious incident reports involving students and drugs were made by schools to the Department of Education and Communities during the last two terms of 2010 - about one per day.
The reports, obtained under Freedom of Information laws, show students have outside "dealers", are selling or supplying to each other or are bringing drugs to school from home.
Separate Education Department data shows northern Sydney has the highest proportion of student suspensions for drugs followed by the North Coast. In the overwhelming number of cases, the illegal substance is marijuana but cases involving cocaine, ecstasy and other tablets have been confirmed.
The reports show students frequently dob in drug-taking classmates. Police are called in every case.
A departmental spokesman said yesterday it had a zero tolerance policy towards possessing and/or using illegal drugs at school.
"The use or possession of illegal drugs or restricted substances in NSW public schools results in the immediate suspension of the student, the involvement of police and the informing of parents," he said. He added there was one drug incident for every 10,000 students in the NSW public school system.
"While these figures are low we still work hard to educate students about the dangers of illegal drugs.
"The focus of drug prevention in NSW public schools is on the drugs that young people are most likely to be exposed to - alcohol, tobacco and cannabis."
Tony Wood, whose teenage daughter Anna died after taking an ecstasy pill at a dance party in 1995, said the southern parts of the state, where he and his wife Angela had been lecturing, were "awash with pills".
"It's ecstasy ... it's everywhere," Mr Wood said.
"A Year 6 boy was offered it on the school bus going home. Some parents drove 70km to town to hear us, they are so bothered about it."
Founder of Youth Off The Streets, Father Chris Riley, said schools had failed to "go deeply enough into the impact of drugs" on children.
According to the incident reports, a teacher in the Hunter-Central Coast region overheard a Year 10 female asking other students for money. "The [student] stated she needed the money to pay her male dealer so she could supply cannabis to another unnamed student at the school," the report said.
A Year 10 boy, also in the Hunter-Central Coast region, brought cannabis to school after his mother told him to "get rid of it".
He sold it to a classmate for $10. In another case police seized a quantity of tablets after a Year 12 pupil was caught distributing them to two other students in the Sydney-Georges River region. He had $420 in his pocket.
The reports reveal some students have become sick after taking drugs, one had an anaphylactic reaction and another collapsed in the playground.
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