Pubdate: Thu, 29 Aug 2002
Source: Star, The (IL)
Copyright: 2000 The Sun-Times Co.
Contact:  http://www.starnewspapers.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1052
Note: The Star prints 23 local editions in Illinois

ON INCREASED DRUG TESTING: GO SLOW

Reporter Glen Leyden's story in the Aug. 18 Star about drug-testing in high 
schools hopefully sounded a wake-up call not just for high school students 
and parents, but for all public-aware readers of our paper.

The critical question it raises is: Just how far do we want to go as a 
society in compromising individual liberty and the right to privacy in 
trying to keep our young people away from the dangers of drugs, 
performance-enhancers, alcohol and tobacco?

The article made clear that most high school leaders don't want to go very 
far at all. Even as the current U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that schools 
have the right to randomly test not just athletes but also other students 
involved in extra-curricular activities, local school officials are 
reticent to exercise that right. Citing the high cost of testing - the 
average urine test costs $35 to conduct and analyze in a laboratory - and 
the philosophical questions such tests raise, they are stepping into this 
minefield very gingerly.

We are glad that is so. The Supreme Court's ruling was highly controversial 
among the justices, who ruled 5-4 for broader testing rights. We were 
particularly impressed by the comments of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 
her dissent of Justice Clarence Thomas' majority opinion. She said 
extending testing beyond the 1995 ruling allowing drug testing for athletes 
is "not reasonable, capricious and even perverse" - and self-defeating. She 
said students involved in extra- curricular activities - everything from 
band to mathletes to chess club - are less likely to do drugs, so a testing 
policy would be focusing on the wrong students. And, such policy might very 
well discourage students inclined to use drugs to join positive activities 
and clubs in which drug use is frowned upon.

An American Civil Liberties Union spokesman quoted in Leyden's piece argued 
further that drug testing healthy, active members of their school 
environment is counter-productive, even "corrosive." Extended testing, he 
said, could very well further alienate teens already cynical about rising 
intrusions on their privacy.

We also found the admonition of Lockport High School Superintendent Chris 
Ward of special value: "Do schools really want to get into that kind of 
thing?" he asked. "Are we taking the pressure of parents to be responsible 
for their kids' behavior?"

Random drug testing of athletes - who might be in additional peril of 
injury to themselves or others - can perhaps be defended on health and 
safety grounds. Some schools, like Homewood-Flossmoor High School, have a 
highly intelligent, confidential, no-punishment random testing program for 
athletes that is apparently effective and broadly acceptable in the 
community. It is based on treatment rather than "seek and punish."

Still, we think schools are right to act very carefully, listening closely 
to their constituent communities. This is a very dicey area, one into which 
the school community should tread with great trepidation.
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MAP posted-by: Beth