Such an approach to discipline gives students the best opportunity to realize their full potential and to know that school personnel expect them to do so. All schools need a clear policy to fight student drug use. This need is emphasized by identification of the reasons some educators fail to respond to suspected student drug use: they might be wrong; they will not be supported by supervisors; they might be targets of student reprisals; they might be sued by parents; parents will deny the problem; or nothing will happen. These concerns can be dealt with by the use of a broadly approved, well planned team approach to identification, gathering of descriptive behavior, and progressive degrees of confrontation with the goal of helping students. Those schools which have set high expectations for their students and have implemented comprehensive drug use prevention and intervention programs report success. 11 references