Pubdate: Tue, 25 Sep 2007 Source: Detroit News (MI) Copyright: 2007, The Detroit News Contact: http://detnews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/126 Author: Jennifer Kern Note: Jennifer Kern, a research associate at the Drug Policy Alliance, spearheads the New York-based group's campaign to provide parents, caregivers and educators with tools to oppose random student drug testing in schools. Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?225 (Students - United States) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Testing) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Marijuana) JUST SAY NO TO RANDOM STUDENT DRUG TESTING The Office of National Drug Control Policy is hosting the fifth regional summit of 2007 in Detroit, which is designed to persuade local educators and politicians to implement across-the-board random, suspicionless student drug testing. The Bush administration is selling a seductive premise: If you test students, they will finally, at long last, "just say no" to illegal drugs (or face being caught by a test). While the simplicity of this theory can be appealing, this unproven policy actually runs counter to well-established principles of how educators and parents can best promote healthy choices among adolescents, particularly those most "at risk." Students, educators and concerned citizens will attend the summit in Detroit to provide educators with important missing information they need to critically access a policy that is costly, intrusive and potentially harmful to students. Discussion of the scientific research evaluating random student drug testing will be conspicuously absent from the presentations of this government summit. For example, in March 2007, the American Academy of Pediatrics published a policy statement holding, "there is little evidence of the effectiveness of school-based drug testing in the scientific literature." In fact, researchers at the University of Michigan conducted the largest study on the topic to date, which compared 94,000 students in 900 American schools with and without a drug testing program, and found virtually no difference in illegal drug use. Additionally, the federal office has yet again failed to invite representatives from the Association of Addiction Professionals, the National Education Association or the National Association of Social Workers to the summit so they could discuss their concerns: that these programs break down relationships of trust between students and adults, hinder open communication, contribute to a hostile school environment, and generally undermine the very protective factors that have been shown to help keep young people stay connected to school and out of trouble with drugs Urine testing risks deterring students who refuse to consent from extracurricular activities based on principle, fear of humiliation or a desire to avoid detection. Of particular concern are students at the "margins" who have much to gain from participating in extracurricular activities. Erecting obstacles to their participation carries even greater risks of harm. The programs also punish those who test positive by suspending them from after-school activities. While summit presenters insist the programs are non-punitive, they in fact rely on the threat of removing students from the very activities proven most effective in keeping them supervised and connected from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. -- peak drug taking hours for teens. If that's not punishment, what is? Drug testing, in fact, provides limited information about student drug use. The standard five panel test has a short window of detection for most drugs other than marijuana and reveals nothing about alcohol, tobacco, Ecstasy, OxyContin or inhalants. Each drug added to the standard test ratchets up the cost and few schools can afford the gold standards of certified laboratories. Testing may trigger oppositional behavior -- such as trying to "beat" the test. The American Academy of Pediatrics warns mandatory testing may inadvertently encourage more students to abuse alcohol -- is not included in many standard testing panels -- or may motivate some drug-involved adolescents to switch to harder drug that leave the system quickly. Drug testing is an imperfect procedure that introduces a plethora of problems regarding false positives, false negatives, specimen collection, chain of custody and storage. Schools must ask students to disclose their private medical information regarding their prescription medications to control for false positives. While promises of confidentiality are touted, when programs pull a student from class for testing and then suddenly suspend them from the team, it is not difficult for other students and teachers to figure out test results. I urge Michigan educators to do their own research before accepting the promises of random student drug testing. Districts in other parts of the country have learned the hard way. After five years the Janesville School District in Wisconsin abandoned their random drug testing program with a $20,000 annual price tag because it failed to reduce drug use among students, particularly binge drinking. The Dublin School District in Ohio abandoned their $35,000 drug testing program and instead hired two full time substance abuse counselors. Join educators across the country and "just say no" to across-the-board random student drug testing. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake