Pubdate: Wed, 20 Mar 2002
Source: Daily News of Los Angeles (CA)
Copyright: 2002 Daily News of Los Angeles
Contact: http://www.dailynews.com/info/contact/index.asp
Website: http://www.DailyNews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/246
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Testing)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

SUPREME COURT JUSTICES ENDORSE TEEN DRUG TESTS

WASHINGTON -- Several Supreme Court justices embraced the idea of random 
drug tests for students involved in after-school activities ranging from 
band to chess club, a major step toward allowing drug testing for all students.

A lawyer for a rural Oklahoma school district argued Tuesday that random 
drug tests for some students was a reasonable response to a general problem 
of drug use among young people.

If the court agrees, it would allow far broader scrutiny of the majority of 
the nation's 24 million high school students who participate in 
extracurricular activities.

"Do you think any school in the United States does not have a drug 
problem?" Justice Antonin Scalia asked rhetorically at one point.

"The danger is getting kids used to the drug culture," he said. "They're 
forming their habits for the rest of their lives."

The court has already ruled that schools may test athletes for drugs. That 
1995 ruling made an exception to the general rule that authorities must 
have some specific reason to suspect wrongdoing before targeting someone 
for search.

The court found that the school in the first 1995 case had a widespread 
drug problem, and student athletes were among the users. Students who 
routinely strip naked in a locker room have a lower expectation of privacy 
than other students, the court reasoned then. Students who used drugs while 
playing vigorous sports could also be a danger to themselves or others, the 
court said.

Justice Stephen Breyer suggested the Oklahoma school district took the 
logical next step in light of the earlier ruling. Breyer voted with the 
majority to approve athlete testing, and he noted on Tuesday, "It's hard 
for me to see if I came out one way (then) I'd come out different here."

The court's ruling in the current case, expected by summer, should fill in 
a major question left from the 1995 ruling: whether the factors that made 
drug testing acceptable for athletes apply to other after-school 
activities, or even students at large.

Wider drug testing remains relatively rare among the nation's 15,500 public 
school districts. Lower courts have reached differing conclusions about the 
practice.

The Tecumseh testing program ran for part of two school years. It was 
suspended after Lindsey Earls, captain of the school academic quiz team and 
self-described "goodie two-shoes," sued over a 1998 drug test. She passed 
the test.

"The constitutional rights of a lot of students are at stake here," Earls 
said after Tuesday's oral argument session. "My biggest fear is there will 
be students drug tested all over, students whose privacy is invaded," said 
Earls, now a freshman at Dartmouth College.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom