Pubdate: Mon, 18 Sep 2000
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2000 The Washington Post Company
Section: Education Week
Contact:  1150 15th Street Northwest, Washington, DC 20071
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Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Author: Jessica Portner

DRUG TESTING BROUGHT TO A NEW LEVEL

Public schools in Hoover, Ala., will begin testing student athletes for 
tobacco and alcohol use this week, under a controversial new policy that 
stretches student drug testing beyond the traditional focus of hard drugs.

Secondary students in the suburban district outside Birmingham will be 
thrown off the football team or the cheerleading squad not only for using 
such drugs as cocaine, marijuana, barbiturates, or heroin. Under the plan 
adopted unanimously by the school board in June, taking one puff on a 
cigarette or drinking a beer at a party could get them banished from sports.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court in 1995 gave all districts the green light to 
test athletes for drug use, more than 100 districts in 20 states have 
required students to take urine tests to play sports or participate in 
extracurricular activities.

But only a few districts have opted to screen student athletes for tobacco 
and alcohol use. Hoover is believed to be the only district in Alabama to 
do so.

'Gateway Drug'

"Tobacco is the gateway drug that leads to all the other problems," argued 
Ron Swann, the athletic director for the 10,000-student district. "This 
[policy] is to give [student athletes] a deterrent so that when they are 
tempted at a party, they have an excuse not to smoke," he said.

A host of health problems, including emphysema, asthma, and lung cancer, 
are associated with smoking cigarettes, Mr. Swann pointed out. Moreover, 
it's illegal in Alabama for a person younger than 19 to use tobacco 
products or consume alcohol, he added.

Under the policy, Hoover officials will test a random selection of 250 
athletes who play on the district's 22 sports teams in grades 7 through 12. 
Students will be tested at the beginning of the season-as they are this 
week-and then a small number of students will be tested every other week on 
random days throughout the year.

An independent company will collect urine samples and screen each student 
for 10 substances, including cocaine, marijuana, amphetamines, 
barbiturates, and heroin. To test for tobacco, the contractor will screen 
for cotitine, a substance that remains in the metabolism after nicotine 
exposure.

At $25 to $30 a test, Mr. Swann estimates the program will cost the 
district $50,000 a year to conduct a total of 1,500 tests. If students are 
caught once, they will be suspended from 25 percent of games; a second 
time, they will be suspended from sports for the semester; the third time, 
they will be benched for the whole school year.

Arthur Spitzer, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer based in 
Washington, criticized the district's policy last week, describing it as 
the latest move by schools to invade students' privacy. "What kids do away 
from school is not a school's business," he asserted. The ACLU has long 
opposed any kind of drug testing and continues to battle such policies in 
state courts. Mr. Spitzer said the Hoover policy was particularly troubling 
because the argument that smoking cigarettes would endanger players' safety 
was specious. Unlike using such drugs as cocaine and barbiturates, he 
argued, smoking cigarettes doesn't necessarily "disable" someone from 
excelling in sports.

"Although it's a dirty habit, millions smoke tobacco, and professional 
athletes have smoked and chewed tobacco for generations, and so it seems 
ridiculous to say if a teen smokes a cigarette, he is a danger to himself 
or others," Mr. Spitzer said.

In the 1995 case, the Supreme Court cited safety as a reason for allowing 
athletes to be tested.

'We Are Serious'

Dr. Richard Schwartz, a pediatrician at Inova Hospital for Children in 
Falls Church, Va., and an expert on adolescent drug use, pointed out that 
drug tests can be easy to circumvent."There must be 10 advertisements a 
month in [the magazine] High Times for products to adulterate urine," he said.

In addition, he said, "because alcohol is going to be out of your system in 
a few hours even if you're totally drunk, you aren't going to find it in 
your urine. For tobacco, it's out in eight to 12 hours," Dr. Schwartz 
said.Hoover school officials said the policy was not prompted by unusually 
high levels of cigarette use by students.

A recent district survey of the school system's one high school found that 
50 percent of seniors said they had smoked a cigarette in the past 30 
days-about the national average.

As he was preparing his athletes for the tests last week, Mr. Swann, the 
athletic director, seemed confident the policy would have a positive effect.

"We want students to know we are serious," he said. "This isn't going to be 
something you can beat."
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