Drug use by teachers a worrisome development

On May 14, a 35-year-old teacher at a primary school in Kagoshima Prefecture was arrested on suspicion of violating the law banning illegal substances. He had been caught when he allegedly sent the email address of a drug dealer to another individual.

Since then, reports Yukan Fuji (Aug 28), another five incidents involving teachers have occurred around the nation, in Nagoya, Saitama (2), Hiroshima and Kanagawa.

In Hiroshima, on Aug 19, a 45-year-old high school teacher was arrested for possession of amphetamines. The previous evening he had been spotted wandering around a residential area in Fukuyama City. Approaching a koban (police box), he had told the officers "I can't find my home." Judging his behavior to be suspicious, he was searched and found in possession of a hypodermic syringe and bag containing a white powder. When a urinalysis showed positive, he confessed.

What on earth is going on, Yukan Fuji wants to know, in the hallowed corridors of Japan's schools? And what's more, what's the story behind the spread -- of what up to now has generally been regarded as an urban crime problem -- to far-flung rural areas like Kagoshima? Are the six incidents over the past four months merely the tip of a much larger iceberg?

"When a teacher is caught using drugs, it's a big story that will definitely get reported," remarked Osamu Mizutani, author of "The Drug Generation: The Teacher Who Made the Rounds at Night to Combat the Drug Infestation," who added, "Actually, I suppose the number of salaried workers arrested on drug charges far outnumbers that of teachers."

Still, teachers face heavy workloads and in addition to having to play mother hen to their wards at school must contend with so-called "monster parents" -- aggressive bullies who refuse to acknowledge the misbehavior of their offspring and who blame the teacher. Under that sort of pressure, they may find tripping on stimulants, getting high on marijuana or shooting up other types of drugs to be appealing.

Still, even an experienced writer like Mizutani seems astonished to learn about drug use by teachers, who are viewed as pillars of society.

What has changed to drive these upstanding sensei's to such illegal activities?

"People who become teachers are serious and not into bad things," observes Mizutani. "Many of them were goody two-shoes as kids. But for that reason they have a low awareness of how bad drugs can be, or they get into it by reassuring themselves, 'No big deal, I can handle it.'"

What's more, the problem might also be an indicator that the volume of illegal stimulants being distributed has expanded.

"Last year, authorities confiscated over one ton of stimulants," Mizutani pointed out. "This suggests that more of the drug is being smuggled in from abroad, resulting in lower prices for users. Recently the street price for 1 gram has declined to between 10,000 and 20,000 yen, which makes it affordable to poorly paid younger teachers in their twenties."

Lower prices might be one reason, he added, why two of the six recent arrests were teachers under age 30.

If teachers start becoming bad examples for the children they teach, no good will come of this, Yukan Fuji warns.

© Japan Today