A proposal from Italy's health minister to send in inspectors to search for drugs in public schools has created division in the center-left government coalition but also won applause from the center-right opposition.
Speaking at the weekend, Livia Turco said "I've thought a lot about it and I believe it would be useful to have a nationwide search of our schools".
"We must also embark on a major information campaign to convince our children to avoid drugs. This will be the most difficult thing to do but also the most essential," she added.
"And a greater effort must be made to combat drug traffickers and dealers. At present we have a stiff law against the consumer but it has proved useless. What we need to do is really crack down on trafficking and that's what we intend to do," the minister said.
Turco's proposal got a very cool response form Education Minister Giuseppe Fioroni who argued that educating students on the consequences of drug use needed to be the primary focus of government policy.
"We must first of all make these kids aware of the risks they are running from alcohol and drug use. Then we must teach them the importance of respecting the law," Fioroni said.
In presenting her ideas on combating growing drug use among Italy's adolescents. Turco said it was important to "work on all levels. Law enforcement must do its part as must school administrators, teachers and parents".
"We all must shoulder our responsibilities and, at the same time, change the existing laws which were intended to be strict but which have, in the end, proved to be ineffective," the health minister said.
Reactions to Turco's proposal have been mixed in both the government and opposition coalitions.
Foreign Trade Minister Emma Bonino, whose Radical Party has for years been advocating legalising drugs, said the plan was "impractical" and Turco's observations were "not well-thought out and too off-the-cuff".
"The thought of police searching schools is for me a little too much," she added.
Support for Turco came from the small Italy of Values government party with MP Silvana Mura stating that "it is inadmissible that institutions which prepare our young people for the future risk becoming an open market for substances which place their health at risk".
Francesco Storace, who was health minister in the previous center-right government, applauded the police search proposal and said Turco "must be credited for having discovered the truth: drugs are bad for you".
Pier Ferdinando Casini, head of the centrist UDC opposition party, also applauded Turco's proposal but asked that she be more "coherent".
"Minister Turco has proposed a more hardline approach and we are ready to back her on this. But how is it possible that on one day she tries to raise the ceiling of permitted amounts of cannabis and on the next she wants to send police into schools?".
"Combating drug use is a very important because it involves our children. Taking a hard line is good but this must be done in a serious and coherent way," Casini said.
Green house whip Angelo Bonelli said it was more important to combat major drug traffickers than to send police into schools.
"Teachers and students should be the only ones in schools. We must go against the big drug dealers and not militarise our schools. What we need to do is figure out how we can convince our young people that taking drugs can ruin their lives," Bonelli said.
