A Chesterton Middle School student just entering the seventh grade was detained at the Porter County Juvenile Detention Center on Wednesday, the first day of school, on a delinquency charge of possession of marijuana after a small quantity was found on his person, Chesterton Police said.

Cpl. Randy Komisarcik, the CPD School Resource Officer, told the Chesterton Tribune today that around mid-day on Wednesday he was approached by Assistant Principal Craig Stafford, who advised that he had information that a seventh-grader was boasting about being in possession of marijuana.

Komisarcik and Stafford went to the seventh-grader’s class, pulled him out, and in Stafford’s office confronted the boy, who admitted that he was in possession of marijuana and surrendered a baggy of a substance which subsequently field-tested positive for marijuana, Komisarcik said.

The marijuana weighed just under a gram, Komisarcik added, and the seventh-grader gave conflicting stories about how it had come into his possession.

Juvenile Probation authorized the seventh-grader’s detention, Komisarcik said, and the boy was later transported to JDC.

Komisarcik said that the boy had just entered seventh grade from Westchester Intermediate School.

Principal Jim Ton made it clear this morning that CMS and the Duneland School Corporation (DSC) have a “zero-tolerance” for drug activity on school grounds and that not only will they involve the criminal justice system in investigating reports of drug activity but will pursue all disciplinary measures available to the DSC when students are found possessing, using, or selling drugs.

Posted 8/22/2008