This morning, I am inspired by this item on random drug testing of students. The original printing is here, and an article with source material is here. Additionally, there’s some scary propaganda here about how marijuana is (supposedly) getting more potent each year, with recent THC levels of 8.5%, “double” what it was in the 1980s. The funny thing about that is that when I was in school in the 80s, they used the same line to discourage us from using pot, telling us things like “This isn’t the relatively harmless pot your parents smoked in the 60s! It’s twice 5 times as potent, with THC levels sometimes as high as 15%!” I recall thinking at the time “Well, if it were legal, the FDA or ATF could regulate that and put a THC percentage right on the label, just like a proof label on alcohol.”
But I digress.
Dr. Rosenbaum’s commentary is remarkably comprehensive, and worth reading. She feels it is not sound policy because there is no evidence that it reduces drug use, it is expensive, and it is an “invasive medical procedure” which should be strictly a matter between the student/patient, his/her parents, and their physician. She says “physician” too, not Physicians Assistant and not Nurse Practitioner. She does not address issues of privacy or civil liberties or Constitutional rights, and interestingly enough the ACLU’s drug testing fact sheet barely touches upon these issues. It is worth looking at some of their links, such as Drug Testing Fails. It is also worth reading an earlier version of Dr. Rosenbaum’s logic.
Please allow me to list some of the reasons that I feel drug testing of high school students is a bad idea. I think you will find my list focuses on pragmatic issues:
Just say no still doesn’t work. It didn’t work in Prohibition. It didn’t work when Nancy Reagan told us. It doesn’t work with abstinence education. It. Still. Doesn’t. Work. If the laundry list of bad things that can happen to you if you do illegal drugs isn’t enough to make you decide not to do them, the threat of a test is not going to do it either.
Where is the money to run drug tests coming from? In an environment where many schools are strapped for cash, putting off essential maintenance, forgoing soap in the bathrooms (isn’t that a great message about the importance of personal hygiene?), having students share textbooks, crowding too many kids into too few classrooms, whining about the expense of testing and other requirements of No Child Left Behind, how dare school administrators waste money on this nonsense!
It’s a logistical nightmare. Where are you going to run these tests? How will you randomly choose the students? How will you get the students to the test area, make an announcement over the loudspeaker that the following 20 kids need to report — and interrupting the lesson and train of thought of every other student and teacher in the whole building? Who will be supervising these tests, and how do we know he/she is not a closet pervert who enjoys watching young people pee, and shouldn’t that person be teaching a class somewhere anyway? Shouldn’t the kids be off learning something?
It’s dehumanizing. The “old version” of Dr. Rosenbaum’s commentary sums it up nicely. You want an adolescent (who has probably been told scare stories about pedophiles) to pee in a cup in front of a teacher? Assuming the young person does not “die of embarassment” on the spot, how is that young person ever going to have the guts to adequately participate in a class and advocate for his/her own education in front of that teacher? And that assumes there is not some additional embarassing factor, such as being on one’s period or having unusual genitals, or trying to hide bruises from abuse, or simply being on some sort of medication that is none of the school’s damn business. Shut up and pee in the cup. This sends two messages: don’t trust authority figures; you are a number, so submit to authority and do whatever you are told. Neither message is good for society as a whole.
It violates those pesky Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution. Read them here. Every citizen — even kids — have the right to be “secure in their persons.” Furthermore, they cannot be “compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself,” which is exactly what these tests do. This isn’t anything like a locker search, because the locker is school property and the student is not. Although the courts found that people in extracurricular activities had a lower expectation of privacy, the fact remains that the purpose of drug testing is to find evidence of the crime of using illegal drugs. They say these tests are to discourage crime, but the actual usage is to find kids to punish: you’re off the team, you’re out of the club, you’re suspended, you’re expelled, the police are on their way, you are being sent to a rehab program (“for your own good” of course).
They’re innacurate. Ok, they may be slightly more accurate than the tests used to “prove” someone was a witch in the Olde Days. They can still be thrown off by legitimate medications (including Ibuprophen), accidental exposure, human error, or just plain being wrong. Ate a poppy seed bagel at breakfast? Live in an apartment next door to people who smoke pot? Took something for that headache you woke up with this morning? Congratulations, you might test positive through no fault of your own. It amazes me that somehow people can sell a test this bad. If a kid turned in a paper with this many errors, he would earn a failing grade.
Finally, it doesn’t address the problem. People who abuse illegal drugs need help, not anxiety and punishment. But as the old saying goes, they have to want help. If we were talking about getting a warrant to for a licensed doctor to administer a drug test to a student suspected of having a drug problem, I could support that. But we aren’t. We’re talking about throwing a blanket on the problem and hoping the actual kids with problems will be a visible lump.
Follow up on the Fort Dix plot: NYT roundup; actual FBI documents; IHT calls it “Dangerous and Clumsy”; as always, an insightful item from the Christian Science Monitor notable for this quote,
“But for many security experts, the men’s motivation is what serves as the starkest warning. “The animosity felt toward the United States isn’t something just outside our borders,” says Bruce Hoffman, a professor of securities studies at Georgetown University in Washington. “There are obviously people inside this country who have the same hostility and are prepared to use violence.”
And in closing, Mr. Dobbs is a little late to Blog Against Theocracy Weekend; Harry Reid comes dangerously close to accusing oil companies of collusion, and Harry knows a racket when he sees one; and differing opinions on the proposal to only fund Iraq for a few months at a time. I am concerned that this will start a trend of a new special finance bill every couple of months. And as for this quote from Mr. Blunt: “If we enact this bill today, you put the insurgents and extremists on an 83 day time clock … see how many young Americans you can kill in 83 days.” Fine. Let’s pass a bill to start bringing them home today. I know most Governors would support that.
The willingness of adults to submit young people to humiliation and totally inappropriate intrusion makes me see red. The idea of innocent until proven guilty, or Constitutional rights, or trust being applied to these young people seems to not occur to them.
Additionally, I work with high school students. Even kids who would never try drugs know of products available at GNC which reduce the likelihood of being detected.
Granny:
You couldn’t be more right. We do this to kids, and then wonder why they are untrusting, secretive, judgmental souls who don’t even understand their own Constitutional rights. Now that I think of it, could such programs make hazing rituals seem normal?
Actions speak louder than words.
this is merely conditioning; teaching the young how to submit to the grossest, demeaning intrusion into privacy and person. Welkomen to Amerika: Arbeiten macht frei – yo.