Pubdate: Wed, 09 May 2007
Source: Daily News, The (Longview, WA)
Copyright: 2007 The Daily News
Contact: http://www.tdn.com/forms/letters.php
Website: http://www.tdn.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2621
Author: Stephanie Mathieu
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Test)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

WAHKIAKUM DRUG-TESTING POLICY GOES TO STATE'S HIGH COURT

OLYMPIA --- A lawyer challenging Wahkiakum School District's random 
drug testing of student athletes still hadn't finished making his 
first point when Supreme Court justices started firing questions at 
him Tuesday afternoon.

"How does this random drug testing work?" Chief Justice Gerry 
Alexander asked attorney Eric Martin, representing the American Civil 
Liberties Union.

What about requiring student athletes to take physical exams? Is that 
an invasion of privacy? Was Martin also opposed to drug testing 
athletes suspected of using illicit drugs?

"I was a little surprised," Martin said following the hearing.

Justices' jump into questioning "bodes well," added Martin, who also 
represents to Wahkiakum High School families to challenged the 
drug-testing policy. "It sounds like they may be struggling a little 
bit with the issues."

Neither did the justices didn't spare Wahkiakum School District's 
attorney, retired county prosecutor Fred Johnson, from rapid 
questioning. After all, the state's highest court has yet to decide a 
case about randomly drug-testing students, several public schools 
across the state have adopted such policies, lawyers for both sides 
said Tuesday.

At issue in the case is whether the school district's interest in 
combating drug use overrides privacy protections in the Washington 
Constitution. It usually takes weeks or months for the Supreme Court 
to hand down decisions, and there is no timetable. Since the Supreme 
Court agreed to hear the case in February, a handful of groups have 
weighed in by submitting briefs to the Court. In one brief, state 
Attorney General Robert McKenna said he supports the district's 
drug-testing policy because it's in the public interest to protect 
student athletes.

"Drug use by high school and college athletes poses a unique and 
significant problem," McKenna wrote. Athletes use drugs to enhance 
performance, prevent fatigue, mask pain and cope with stress -- 
causing them to hurt themselves and other athletes, he added.

The Washington Education Association (the statewide teachers' union) 
and the Drug Policy Alliance submitted a joint brief in support of 
the ACLU. They contend that random drug testing could cause students 
to rebel or keep troubled teens out of sports when they need to be 
involved the most.

"There's a lot of concern it could actually do more harm than good," 
Jennifer Kern, a research associate for the Drug Policy Alliance, 
said in an interview after oral arguments concluded Tuesday. "It 
could inflame adolescent rebellion."

The district adopted the policy in October 1999, saying attempts to 
curb widespread drug use through other intervention programs wasn't 
working. Two Wahkiakum families with students in public school teamed 
up with the American Civil Liberties Union to sue the district.

Officials resumed randomly testing athletes last fall following the 
Wahkiakum Superior Court ruling in favor of the district last summer. 
Weekly, district officials draw the names of one middle school and 
two high school athletes, who are driven to the county's health 
department. There, they must urinate in close proximity to a health 
department official.

The health employee either waits outside the bathroom while the 
student urinates or stands in the doorway, but the health employee 
never enters the student's bathroom stall, Johnson told the Supreme 
Court during his 20-minute presentation.

Besides demanding details about the urine tests, justices focused 
questions around how much privacy student athletes should have and 
whether they should he held to a higher standard. "Washington courts 
have long held bodily functions to be an arena of privacy," Martin argued.

"The district never sees the act of urination or the urine," Johnson 
responded, adding that there is a lesser expectation of privacy with 
student athletes.

Through the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association they 
are subject to a number of regulations, and even students who don't 
participate in extracurricular activities undergo scoliosis testing 
and immunization, Johnson added.

Historically, Washington courts have granted its citizens more 
privacy rights than federal courts, and Martin worried that 
supporting Wahkiakum School District's drug-testing policy would change that.

"What the district is asking you to do is develop an exception," he said.

Listening intently from the public gallery, Cle Elum resident Jock 
Young said he attended the hearing because his 17-year-old daughter 
undergoes suspicionless drug testing at her Cle Elum high school to 
play on the tennis team.

"We don't want our daughter to be forced to take the test," Young 
said after arguments concluded. "She didn't want to abandon the 
tennis team. ... There was no suspicion at all that she was using drugs."

Young is also being represented by the ACLU in a suit against his 
daughter's school district.

Because the issue is on the minds of a number of school officials 
across the state, Johnson said he is proud the small Wahkiakum 
district stuck with the case.

"I think the district should be commended for bringing this this 
far," Johnson said. "This is where it should be, the state Supreme Court."

Hans York, one of the Wahkiakum parents represented by the ACLU in 
the case, acknowledged that there is a drug problem in the Wahkiakum 
School District, but he said there are drug problems in every school.

"What about the coaches and the administrators?" he asked. "The job 
of the school is to teach the kids values, not police them."
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman