Pubdate: Sun, 18 May 2008
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2008 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: Jason Blevins

SCHOOLS SAY YES TO DRUG TESTING

Parents Want The Random Checks, But Opponents Say The Practice Is Useless.

PAGOSA SPRINGS -- Dillon Sandoval would welcome an easy out -- a 
solid reason to say no to the dope-smoking among students in his high school.

"If a kid has an excuse not to do it, people will stop asking him. 
Then they'd maybe even stop using," said Sandoval, a 16-year-old 
sophomore at Pagosa Springs High.

The reason to just say no is coming.

At least three districts in Colorado conduct random drug tests on 
students in extracurricular activities. Holyoke plans to begin 
testing next year. And representatives from schools in several other 
places -- Weld County, Durango, Archuleta County, Colorado Springs, 
Dolores and Towaoc -- were all in Pagosa Springs recently to hear 
federal drug warriors pitch the program.

"We are not waging a war on drugs; we are waging a war of defense -- 
a defense of the basis of humanity, and that is our brain," said Dr. 
Bertha Madras, the White House deputy drug czar in charge of reducing 
demand for drugs.

While research has not found that random testing reduces student drug 
use, testing is catching on. An estimated 4,155 schools across the 
country test urine, saliva, hair and even blood of students involved 
in extracurricular competitive activities -- covering students in 
everything from 4-H to football to the debate team.

But the tests are stirring ire among civil libertarians who see them 
as a violation of individual rights, a threat to a school's sense of 
community and a dangerous extension of government power.

"I think the war on drugs is becoming a war on people," said Cathryn 
Hazouri, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of 
Colorado. "They are making the school into a watchdog, and that's 
more disruptive to the educational process than it is protective."

Summit draws crowd

Madras and her Office of National Drug Control Policy staff stopped 
in Pagosa Springs last month, peddling random drug testing as the 
best tool to deter, identify and treat drug use among students. It 
was the 30th "Random Student Drug Testing Summit" since President 
Bush began pushing the practice in 2004. The summit drew more than 45 
Colorado school administrators, teachers, coaches and parents.

The Office of National Drug Control Policy identified 1,000 testing 
programs at schools. Based on that, the office figures there are more 
than 4,100 such programs nationwide, including 1,950 at middle schools.

The schools tend to be clustered in a few states, with testing 
typically beginning in rural counties and moving into more urban areas.

"There are pockets, with strong advocates, where it just catches on," 
Madras said. "Our hope is that at the state, district and community 
level, people take the reins."

Schools that test can find plenty of federal funding to support their 
programs. Bush in 2004 boosted funding for schools seeking random 
drug testing from $2 million to $23 million and has kept annual 
funding at similar levels since.

3 Colorado schools test

Colorado has at least three schools randomly drug-testing 
extracurricular students: the 100-student Sierra Grande High School 
in Blanca, the 230-student Ignacio High School and the 165-student 
Rangely High School. About three-quarters of the students in each 
school are involved in extracurricular competitive activities and 
susceptible to random testing.

"I don't think there is anything wrong with it at all, and I've never 
heard anyone complain," said Hastin Boulger, a senior football player 
and track athlete at Rangely who has participated in his school's 
random drug-testing program for three years. "If you are doing the 
drugs, you don't really deserve to do the sports."

Ignacio spends $300 a year testing the urine of six randomly selected 
student athletes three times a season. Since the testing began in 
1999, no student athlete has tested positive.

"We don't see anything negative about it," said Melanie Taylor, the 
school's assistant principal and athletic director. "We are not 
seeing drugs and alcohol as a big problem in our school."

Taylor said before installing the program, drugs and alcohol were 
problems at Ignacio. The mere threat of testing seems to have played 
the largest role in curtailing drug and alcohol use, she said.

Parents and community leaders in Pagosa Springs have seen the 
increasing use of drugs among local students and have arranged for a 
voluntary testing program that delivers things like free pizzas and 
ski passes from local businesses to students who stay clean.

"It is a problem, and we need to do something," said Joanne Irons, a 
Pagosa Springs parent who formed a drug-prevention coalition that is 
working with the Archuleta School District to install random testing. 
"I think this summit has changed some views in the district."

Parents advocate tests

Administrators from several more Colorado schools -- including Battle 
Mountain High in Avon, Pagosa Springs and Holyoke High -- are 
studying random testing for their extracurricular students. At 
Holyoke, parents asked school administrators to begin random drug testing.

"Their kids talk to them and tell them about the prevalence of drugs 
and alcohol not in the school but on the weekends. They want it 
stopped," said Stephen Bohrer, superintendent of the Holyoke School 
District, which next fall will install a random drug-testing program 
for 85 percent of the 300 students at Holyoke High.

So far, scientific studies have not shown random drug testing is a 
deterrent. Dr. Linn Goldberg, a professor of medicine at Oregon 
Health and Science University in Portland, conducted a two-year 
clinical trial that found drug and alcohol use by student athletes 
did not differ between schools with random testing and schools 
without. Goldberg found that student athletes had little faith in drug testing.

"It doesn't make sense to spend people's money on programs that have 
not been shown to be effective, especially while other programs do 
work," said Goldberg, whose study was funded by the National 
Institute on Drug Abuse and was published last fall in the Journal 
for Adolescent Health. "Random drug testing is a program driven by 
people just wanting to do something and not really looking hard 
enough, saying, 'Does this really work?' "

Benefits questioned

Similarly, a 2003 study by University of Michigan researchers 
published in the Journal of School Health found drug use at schools 
with random testing programs was almost identical to that at schools 
without programs.

Supporters say unequivocally but anecdotally that drug testing works. 
Hunterdon Central High School in Flemington, N.J., has been randomly 
testing students since 1996 and has emerged as a national flagship 
for drug testing.

After winning a 2000 lawsuit challenge by the American Civil 
Liberties Union, the school resumed testing. Today, the 3,000-student 
school boasts 1,900 extracurricular students in its testing pool. 
Last year, the school spent $8,000 for 526 random tests, and eight 
were positive for drug use.

"We are spending the money for the 518 who tested negative," said 
Hunterdon's principal, Chris Steffne, at the Pagosa Springs summit. 
"We always focus on deaths and accidents and dropouts and overdoses, 
but we often forget about the lost opportunities."

Every speaker at the summit noted that any testing program must 
respect student confidentiality, as dictated by the U.S. Supreme 
Court. Records of positive tests must be treated like medical records 
and eventually destroyed, Madras said.

But coaches, principals, teachers and students acknowledge there is 
little privacy within the school community. A kid tests positive and 
isn't suited up for the big game, everyone knows why.

"If they are embarrassed because everyone knows, maybe they won't do 
it again," said Rangely's Boulger, who knows of two kids who were 
nabbed under his school's testing program. "Drugs are illegal. Nobody 
forced them to do it. They made the choice, and they pay the consequences."

It's that lack of privacy that worries opponents. "They say it's 
confidential, but that doesn't mean it is," said Mike Krause with the 
Independence Institute, a Golden policy research organization that is 
critical of expanding the role of government. "This could really 
screw a kid's life up if they get flagged and it comes back to haunt 
them in 20 years."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom