Pubdate: Tue, 17 May 2005
Source: Daily News of Newburyport (MA)
Copyright: 2005 Essex County Newspapers, Inc
Contact:  http://www.newburyportnews.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/693
Author: Dan  Touhy

STATE WILL HELP SCHOOLS PAY FOR DRUG TESTING

BOSTON - Schools that want to implement drug testing will each receive a
$100,000 boost from the state, the lieutenant governor announced yesterday.
The testing is billed as the linchpin for redoubled prevention efforts to
head off epidemic levels of drug abuse, with OxyContin and heroin as notable
targets. The plan earmarks 80 percent of the money to substance-abuse
counseling, with the rest used for testing.

Salem School Superintendent Herbert Levine, who joined Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey
in unveiling the plan at the Statehouse, said students would have to take
the tests if a district opts to implement the program.

He recounted his experience in helping his 20-year-old son battle an
OxyContin addiction. And he said his son said testing would have scared him
away from taking opiates.

"I don't think that student testing is necessarily the answer to all of the
problem," Levine said. "But it is an answer, it's another arrow in the
quiver for us in education to be able to help parents."

Healey said it would target a trend in younger and younger students using
drugs. She said 12.9 years old is the average age at which Massachusetts
children first try marijuana.

The state plan concentrates on four areas: prevention, early intervention,
enforcement, and accountability. It would be funded through a $9.1 million
supplemental budget bill the Romney administration filed earlier this year.
The supplemental budget would help the state obtain and use $14.5 million in
matching federal funds.

Healey said an additional 6,000 to 8,000 people would get detox services,
out of an estimated 40,000 who now need services but do not seek or get
services. In  2004, 82,440 people received publicly funded treatment
services. The plan also includes $50,000 per school in targeted communities
for police/resource officers.

In deference to local control, Healey said the state would provide the
support should districts and communities want to launch a drug-testing
program. "We want science-based programming, things that we know work,"
Healey said. "We will not be reinventing the wheel here. We're going to be
going to things that we know worked in other communities."

Levine said districts could make the testing acceptable or even attractive
without making it punitive. He said a drug-testing program could be launched
as early as 2006, though he will not be around to see it because he is
scheduled to  retire June 30.

"Some folks have an issue with student drug testing under any
circumstances," Levine said. "There are others who would support it under
any circumstances. What we're trying to do is find a balance."

However, the Massachusetts chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union
said there is no evidence student drug testing works.

Sarah Wunsch, staff attorney for ACLU-Massachusetts, warned, "The kids may
have some rights here that would be violated." She added the state would be
better off spending more on education and treatment, including a
needle-exchange program for intravenous drug users.

Money spent on prevention accounts for only about 11 percent of the $250
million spent annually on substance abuse services in Massachusetts,
according to Healey. The plan draws extensively from information gathered
over the past year, when Healey traveled the state and met with school
officials, parents, health care  advocates, and members of law enforcement.
Some of the information came from regional round-table discussions led by
Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett. "We welcome any state support in
coordinating ways to choke off these drugs," Blodgett said last night. He
said early education and intervention are increasingly important to combat
drug use and abuse among young people. But two months ago, Blodgett said he
did not think drug testing of students would work.

"I don't see drug testing as being the solution," Blodgett said at a
Marblehead Rotary Club meeting in early March.

Rather than testing, Blodgett has said he advocates a program to educate
young people on the dangers of drug addiction, including kids as young as 10
and 11. The state plan also includes expanded treatment services for people
in prisons. Gov. Mitt Romney yesterday signed an executive order to
establish an Interagency Council on Substance Abuse and Prevention, to be
led by Healey, to coordinate efforts among 13 state agencies that now
provide services. Healey praised existing enforcement efforts, but indicated
the state could provide better coordination through the interagency council.
Romney also filed legislation to stiffen penalties for those convicted of
making or distributing methamphetamine. The bill would make the manufacture
and trafficking of amphetamines a felony subject to up to five years in
prison and  $20,000 in fines.

Sen. Steven A. Tolman, D-Watertown, the chairman of the Legislature's new
Committee on Mental Health and Substance Abuse, said methamphetamine is the
next big battle facing Massachusetts after the OxyContin abuse. Tolman
endorsed the new strategy and underscored his committee's support for
prevention programs.

"The first step is getting the message out to the children: Do not try this
drug, it is a suicide pact," Tolman said.

Is drug testing students legal? The Massachusetts chapter of the American
Civil Liberties Union said yesterday there is no evidence student drug
testing works. But Massachusetts certainly isn't the first state to grapple
with the ethical issues around drug testing.

In late March, Lisa Brady, the former principal of the Hunterdon Central
High School in New Jersey, came to Salem to share her experiences with a
student drug-testing program.

She said student drug use dropped significantly after she helped start a
random testing program in 1997.

That changed in 2000, after the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the school and
the program was suspended, causing drug use among students to "skyrocket,"
Brady  said. The ACLU had argued that random drug testing violated a
student's constitutional right to privacy and their protection against
unreasonable searches. But in September 2003, the New Jersey Supreme Court
upheld the school's drug testing of students involved in extracurricular
activities and those who park on  campus - and testing continued.

Hunterdon Central, with 2,600 students, started testing after seeing the
results of an American Drug and Alcohol Survey, which students at the school
completed anonymously. It showed that more than one-third of them had used
marijuana. It also showed there were students using hallucinogens,
stimulants  and cocaine. Students surveyed said the drugs were easily
available.
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