For a decade in Australia, drug education in schools had been shaped by the harm minimization approach adopted by State and national governments. The approach had been widely accepted by drug educators, and had encouraged schools to deepen their commitment to drug education, allowed them to communicate honestly with students, and to respond to instances of drug use in a less confrontational and more caring manner. Despite these advances, the notion of "zero tolerance" within schools has been promoted recently as part of the national school drug education policy. This article suggests that adoption of a zero tolerance policy will end the consensus among drug educators, reduce the efficacy of drug education, and lead to more punitive treatment of youthful drug experimenters, while doing nothing to reduce drug use. It concludes that the existing policy of harm minimization offers schools more scope to address drug issues in a constructive manner than does zero tolerance, which, in practice, may inflate the harmful effects on young people of drug use. References