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Schools consider drug tests
Associated Press | ColumbiaTribune.com | January 28, 2006

TOWN AND COUNTRY (AP) - The young men walking the halls at Christian Brothers College High School in suburban St. Louis couldn’t look more clean-cut than they do in their school-sanctioned collared shirts and dress pants.

But administrators here - looking to move beyond appearances - are proposing a mandatory drug testing program to make sure all of the private school’s 1,100 students are drug-free.

"I know a lot of people are worried about privacy concerns, but they’re telling us it’ll be kept confidential," said junior Tommy Daher, 17, of Manchester. Randomly selected students who test positive will be given help to get off drugs and asked to leave school if they fail a second time.

"I think it’s great that we’ll be leading the way in this," Tommy said.

Like CBC, schools around the nation have been trying to determine what’s helpful, and what’s over the line, when it comes to testing children for drugs.

There’s a move in many public schools to drug-test athletes or students involved in extracurricular activities. Schools testing for steroids are on the rise, after increased attention about the use of performance-enhancing drugs in professional sports.

There are voluntary programs where middle schoolers agree to stay drug-free and take part in testing.

School drug tests are hailed as an effective drug-fighting tool by the White House but called unhelpful by a civil liberties group.

Private schools have more leeway to set their own policies, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that schools can conduct random drug testing on middle and high school students who participate in competitive extracurricular activities. Then, President George W. Bush voiced support of student drug testing in his 2004 State of the Union address, helping to fuel interest, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy said.

"I think it’s a clear tool not to play hide-and-seek with this problem," said the White House office’s director, John Walters. He has heard of roughly one school district or private school a week starting some form of random drug testing since last spring. He did not know of any public schools attempting mandatory testing of all its students, as some private schools are doing.

Walters said drug testing in schools is no substitute for parenting and educational programs but helps prevent students who aren’t using drugs from trying them and aids schools in identifying students who are on drugs in order to get them assistance.

"I don’t think drug testing is helpful in any schools, even in private schools where there are not the same legal obstacles," Graham Boyd, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Drug Law Reform Project based in Santa Cruz, Calif., said yesterday.

The tests interfere with school officials’ ability to build relationships based on trust with students, he said. They might reinforce for a student not using drugs that they’re "in the right place," but Graham said he hasn’t seen that they help students on drugs or who are looking to try them.

The tests raise privacy issues and concerns about the fairness of certain types of tests, he said.

Christian Brothers College High School is still hearing from parents about whether they favor the change, but other schools founded by the same religious order have similar programs and like what they’ve seen. St. Patrick High School in Chicago said 11 students tested positive once for drugs last year, but just one student tested positive twice.

"The purpose of this is not to catch kids. It’s not to be punitive. It’s to help kids," said Brother David Poos, principal of CBC, which was founded in 1850.

If testing moves forward, about 15 students a day will be randomly selected for testing at the start of an academic year until the entire student body has been checked. Random tests will continue during the year. A section of hair about an inch and a half long will be cut from a student’s head and sent to an outside business to check for use of marijuana, cocaine, PCP, ecstacy, methamphetamines and opiates.

If a student tests positive, a school official will meet with the student and his parents to discuss treatment options and how the student can get off drugs. Findings will not be placed on a student’s permanent record.

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TheNewGuy

Awesome, who needs privacy anyways? From my own past experience in HS, if they randomly drug tested youths involved in sports for drugs, 50% of all the young atheletes would all of a sudden not have the urge to play sports anymore. It won't stop them from doing drugs, it'll stop them from doing anything that would bring a drug test upon them.

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"Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power." ~P.J. O'Rourke

oneluv4boognish

I used to live not too far from Manchester and Town and Country. Honestly these people think that since their **** must smell THAT good considering they wipe their asses with hundreds that their kids don't have rights...because they're the ones with the money not their kids. I know some people that have been the byproduct of growing up in that "neck of the woods" and it's sad but most of them don't have a problem with MJ, it's the "off topic drug" that is running so rampant there. No clue how long that crap stays in your system but it's not the MJ that's the problem there. Seriously less than an hour away (one county southwest) i'd bet that one in five trailers were cookin that crap...but anyways honestly i'd be more pissed if it was public schools that were drug testing...either way it's wrong...but it's not my tax money going to test these poor kids.

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teufelfisch

Wow, that is sooo smart. If kids are using drugs, kick them out of school!!! That solves the problem.



For the school.

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killer12382

Where is it written that grade school and high school kids have privacy? You're at school to LEARN, not get high. And after school activities are a privilege, not a right. Life is all about choices. Choose to get high and not play sports or whatever. Or keep your drug activities in check and participate.

 

killer12382

It's okay.....the world needs ditch diggers too.

Basically Baked

Killer, it's nice that you've lived a perfect life so that you can insult some Pothead students without being a hypocrite. The truth is that school can be boring and unstimulating. Sure pot isn't the best option, but many people try it out just to pass the time. Shouldn't we at least give these kids the chance to prove their inteligence in the classroom before we cast them aside. I smoke pot in school every once and awhile, and used to smoke it daily there. This doesn't stop me from getting straight As in grade 12. I'm not advocating getting high for class, but if i had been kicked out, what would it really have accomplished? We'd have one less kid going off to college next year. Frankly killer, if your views can be summed up as simply as making all the bored teenage stoners
"ditch diggers", we can safely discount whatever else you say.

oneluv4boognish

Yeah....that whole disregarding thing is a growing trend

PotShot

Yeah, and we need educated people a whole lot more.

Right, and you can't learn and be high at the same time? From my own personal research, I can assure you that you are wrong.

I guess everybody should get invested in some drug testing companies; massive whiz-quizzing should be a great boon to all the drug-war profiteers in that industry.

oneluv4boognish

My only opinion on the lunacy that was killer's response is that in regards to the "you're at school to learn, not to get high" comment is that there's no need to be toking AT school. It doesn't interfere with learning (for everyone that is...i'm sure some it could...but never did for me) but it sure can legally screw ya. I smoked pot in high school. I also left campus to do it. I'd much rather get caught cuttin class than smoking on school grounds. That's a legal headache no teenager needs.