Police Target Student Drug Use

Police say this marijuana was to be distributed at Walt Whitman and Winston Churchill high schools in Montgomery and the District's Woodrow Wilson. (Courtesy Of Montgomery County Police)

In May, while investigating an adult suspect, narcotics officers came across two 17-year-old students, a boy from Whitman and a girl from Churchill. The teens were spotted leaving a Rockville townhouse where investigators were watching a suspected marijuana dealer, police said. Detectives pulled them over and found 2 1/2 pounds of pot in a backpack, they said.

Later, searching the Whitman student's bedroom in Bethesda, detectives found $6,620 in a dresser drawer and a digital scale and psilocybin mushrooms in another drawer, police allege.

Paul Peckham, 19, who lived at the townhouse, is scheduled to be tried in October on charges of selling marijuana. The students were charged as juveniles, and the status of their cases could not be determined.

Grapes said it is unusual to arrest Montgomery teens with such quantities of pot, but not unprecedented. Several years ago, he said, he arrested a 16-year-old Bethesda girl who was selling pot and had a tally sheet of orders totaling $30,000.

Generally, however, drug arrests of teens in Montgomery are mundane matters. Suspects found with small amounts of marijuana are typically taken to a district police station. The cases usually are forwarded to juvenile authorities, and the suspects are released to their parents. "They write a report, and that's pretty much the end of it," Grapes said.

Unlike some jurisdictions, Montgomery police do not use undercover officers posing as students. Nor do they enlist students to work undercover, as they do adults.

But Grapes said he plans to use other techniques to build cases against teen dealers, including questioning those charged with possession. "They should expect me to be calling or knocking on their doors," he said.

He said he intends to interview associates and parents, examine telephone records and, when necessary, execute formal search warrants with his colleagues.

In the past, he said, searches tended to be voluntary, conducted only with the consent of the parents. This fall, he said, he expects to take a more direct approach with certain suspects and their families, telling them, "Have a seat on the couch and we'll tell you when we're done."