A total of 16 students at a private music school in Beijing have received administrative detention for use of marijuana, Beijing police said on Thursday.
"Police conducted urine tests of the 16 students after receiving tips from Net users, and they tested positive for marijuana," read the announcement released by the Haidian District Public Security Bureau through its official Sina Weibo account.
Beijing Midi School of Music admitted in an early announcement on its WeChat account on Thursday that the students were taken into police custody from the school dormitories.
"Police came to the dormitories to conduct urine tests and took away over 10 students on Tuesday … Police notified the school on Thursday that they decided to give students lighter punishment since they are first-time offenders," read the school's announcement.
The school has strict rules regulating students' behavior in dormitories, and the school's management took full responsibility for the incident and apologized to the public, the announcement read.
Wang Man, a teacher at Midi, told the Global Times on Thursday that the students may be detained for five to seven days before being allowed to return to school.
Wang said that the students are too young to resist their curiosity about drugs, noting that the school decided to allow them to resume classes since "dismissal is not the right way to educate them."
"We were also shocked by the news. The principal and teachers have stressed that there should be no drugs or cigarettes in the school since the first day we arrived, and it is frustrating to see people blindly defame the school and other students," a Midi student surnamed Liang told the Global Times.
Liang also said that those detained by police were some of the younger pupils at Midi, which accepts students aged 15-30.
Han Xiao, a lawyer with Beijing-based Zhong Run Law Firm, told The Beijing News on Thursday that the school does not need to shoulder any responsibility for the incident since it does not voluntarily provide students with a venue for taking drugs.
Established in 1993, Beijing Midi School of Music is the first music school in China with a curriculum focused on modern musical genres such as rock, jazz, blues and pop, according to the school's official website.
The school is known for its organization of the Midi Music Festival since 2000.
