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National Public Radio's Justice Talking this week takes on the issue of random student drug testing.Marsha Rosenbaum, director of DPA's Safety First project, debates Dr.Robert DuPont about the merits, effectiveness and cost of school drugtesting programs. Rosenbaum warns that drug testing takes scarce moneyaway from drug education and extracurricular activities while damagingstudent teacher relationships and further marginalizing at-riskstudents. She stresses, "Let parents do their job."
Later in the program, a mother in Missouri describes the process ofsupporting her two children as they decide whether to consent totesting in order to participate in extracurricular activities. Her songives up serving as the elected student council president because heobjects to the invasion of his privacy, while her daughter consents totesting because she hopes to earn a college scholarship from her sportsparticipation and wants to be with her friends.
The program closes with Joseph Cappella, Professor of Communicationsat the University of Pennsylvania, discussing his research around theOffice of National Drug Control Policy’s anti-drug campaigns. Heexplains the dangers of exaggeration, pointing to an advertisementdepicting marijuana as a gateway drug which actually increased thedesire to use marijuana in high-risk students.
More information and audio files of the program are available here.
http://www.nooked.com/news/itemtrack...0d3916552d63bf

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