Pubdate: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 Source: Daily Press (VA) Copyright: 2002 The Daily Press Contact: http://www.dailypress.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/585 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Testing) Mathews County RANDOM DRUG TESTS FOR STUDENTS A BAD IDEA Recognizing a problem is the first step toward solving it. The Mathews County School Board recognizes that drugs are a problem in the school system. But that next step, finding a way to deal with the problem, can trip you up. The School Board has tentatively agreed to a program of voluntary drug testing for high school students. The details have to be worked out, and testing wouldn't begin until the fall. But here, basically, is how the program would work: Students and parents would have to agree for the students to be in the program. Those tested would be chosen randomly from the volunteers. A first violation would involve no school discipline. For a second offense, the student would have to attend a drug-treatment program at his or her expense. Parents would be notified if their child didn't want to be in the program or refused to submit to the urine test. Students would be given incentives to volunteer, such as free parking permits or free admission to athletic events. The hope, obviously, is that the combination of parental pressure and incentives would get a large pool of volunteers and that the chance of getting caught would deter students from using drugs. They'd also have a positive "crutch" on which to lean if caught in circumstances where drugs were being used. The possibility of being tested would be an excuse for saying "no" to an offer to use marijuana or some other drug. School officials have obviously given some thought to trying to devise a program that's legal, doesn't discriminate against any single group of students, such as athletes, and that's focused on helping, not punishing, students. All of this is commendable, but ... There's another lesson being taught by this program: that it's "normal" to be subjected to random tests -- random searches, really, of that most personal of possessions, your own body. The lesson is that if you aren't willing to go along with this, you're suspect. Maybe you're doing drugs. Maybe you're not a team player. But whatever it is, it's not good. This is not a lesson schools should be teaching. Searches, especially searches of bodily fluids, should be the exception, not the norm. Schools should teach that important civic lesson, not undermine it. Here's an alternative. Make the drug testing available to those families who feel they need it, but take away the incentives, the peer pressure and the normalization of searches. That makes the decision about whether to test more personal and more private, yet it still strengthens the school system's partnership with families in the battle against drugs. - --- MAP posted-by: Jackl