Pubdate: Sat, 01 Apr 2000
Source: Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
Copyright: 2000 The Sydney Morning Herald
Contact:  GPO Box 3771, Sydney NSW 2001
Fax: +61-(0)2-9282 3492
Website: http://www.smh.com.au/
Forum: http://forums.fairfax.com.au/
Author: Raymond Seidler

URINE TESTING ADD PUNITIVE DIMENSION TO SCHOOLS

If the principal of St Andrew's Cathedral School believes that it is
compassionate to drug test students, he should think again. Urine
testing even under stringent supervision is fraught with difficulty.

It creates a punitive and coercive dimension to a school's role in
society.

The only reliable drug-testing technique which is tamper proof is hair
analysis, which quantifies the drug taken and the amount consumed. It
is very expensive.

Urine testing requires video surveillance or direct observation to be
reliable.

This would be an onerous responsibility for a school and could
represent an invasion of a student's privacy.

Schools would be better served leaving drug detection to the experts
and focusing on drug education in an open and inclusive manner.

Policing abstinence is an impossibility. It will, inevitably, fail and
further entrench the us and them divide between students and their
teachers.

Dr Raymond Seidler,
Kings Cross
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