November 13, 1998VICTORY FOR COMMON SENSE, ONCE AGAIN COMING FROM THE PRAIRIESSTUDENTS WELCOME VOTE TO LIFT SMOKING BANJim Farrell Journal Staff Writer Edmonton - The tobacco-using students of Eastglen composite high school look forward to the day when they can once again light up on school property. So do residents who live near the north-side school. The public school board voted Tuesday to allow schools whose students light up on nearby lawns or beside busy streets to relax their bans on smoking. Smoking on school property was banned only two months ago. "I think it should happen," 16-year-old Eastglen student Christina Cassidy said as she huddled in a cold wind on the east side of 68th Street, opposite her school. "Cars speed down this street and a lot of the kids don't pay attention. Anything could happen." The risk of a student getting hit by a car while going for a smoke is only one of the reasons Eastglen and several other schools can now relax their prohibition against smoking. Forcing students off school property also exposes them to people who cruise the area offering to sell drugs out of their cars. "Sure, there are some drug dealers around here," said Cassidy. "You can buy marijuana from them. Some are students at our school, some go to other schools and some don't go to school at all." Grade 12 student Trevor Myers says the non-smoking ways of many of his teachers are more to blame for the prohibition than the risk of drug use. "They don't understand how it is when you just have to have a smoke," Myers said. "They don't understand what it's like to have to wait 70 minutes for a cigarette." The streetscape to the east of Eastglen offers mute testimony to the addictions of pupils like Myers. Cigarette butts carpet the grass and empty candy wrappers and lunch bags blow in the wind. Enough is enough says 68th Street resident Joyce Galon. "I think moving them back onto school property is a great idea. I don't like them milling around in front of my house. It used to be only two or three in a group but it's now it's sometimes 30 or 40. "It's getting really sloppy around here. If it continues, the school is going to have to clean up the mess." - Edmonton Journal
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