Random Student Drug Testing is Not the Answer

The drug czar's staff is touring the country hosting summits designed to entice local educators to start drug testing their students -- randomly and without cause. Today the road show comes home and D.C. administrators, coaches and counselors will get the hard sell. While White House officials will attempt to describe the programs in benign terms, I urge educators to do their own research. Student drug testing programs are unproven, invasive, expensive and, perhaps most important, potentially counterproductive.

Random student drug testing programs are unproven. Educators will notice a conspicuous absence of information regarding scientific research at this Bush Administration summit. In fact, the only national, peer-reviewed study ever conducted on the topic compared 94,000 students in almost 900 U.S. schools with and without a drug testing program and found virtually no difference in illegal drug use. Furthermore, last November researchers from Oregon Health and Science University published results from randomized experimental trials that concluded random drug and alcohol testing did not reliably reduce past month drug and alcohol use among student athletes.

Drug testing is invasive and the collection of a specimen can be especially alienating to adolescents. With the looming specter of false positives, schools must ask students to disclose private health information regarding their prescription medications, raising additional anxieties -- among students and faculty alike -- about the potential for breaches in confidentiality and false accusations.

For its high price tag, testing is inefficient in detecting drug problems. Though it may provide a false sense of security among school officials and parents, testing detects only a tiny fraction of users and misses too many who might be in real trouble. The Dublin School District in Ohio abandoned its $35,000 drug-testing program and instead hired two full-time substance abuse counselors.

Random drug testing programs are counterproductive. White House officials claim the students embrace the random searches, but strong evidence disputes their claims. The researchers from OHSU found attitudinal changes among students in schools with drug testing programs that indicate new risk factors for future substance use. Student athletes in schools with drug testing reported less positive attitudes toward school, less faith in the benefits of drug testing and less belief that testing was a reason not to use drugs, among other indicators. Those findings support objections that suspicion-less testing can erode relationships of trust between students and adults at school, damaging an essential component of a safe and rewarding learning environment.

Many other potential unintended consequences of random student drug testing programs become apparent upon closer inspection. While summit presenters insist the programs are non-punitive, they in fact rely on the threat of removing students from the very activities proven most effective in keeping them supervised and connected from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. -- peak drug taking hours for teens. If that's not punishment, what is?

Testing may also trigger oppositional behavior, such as trying to "beat" the test. The American Academy of Pediatrics warns that mandatory testing may inadvertently encourage more students to abuse alcohol -- not included in many standard testing panels -- or may motivate some drug-involved adolescents to switch to harder drugs that leave the system more quickly.

We would better serve young people by facing the reality that there is no quick fix for the complex issues surrounding substance abuse. Much like the "Just Say No" approach, random drug testing oversimplifies the complexities of life faced by teenagers these days.

Instead of investing in surveillance, we should spend our time and resources educating students through comprehensive, interactive and honest drug education with assistance and support for students whose lives have been disrupted by substance use.

Comments

[alxndk]

How about making it mandatory for students to see a school counselor periodically?
And not an old professor... But somebody who is young and whom they can relate to!
I still remember the speech of an ex heroin addict who came to my high school once.
It was better than any commercial or any random drug testing!

[HeevenSteven]

I completely agree with your title and don't even have to read your essay, although I will. Obviously random testing is nothing more than CYA.

[SacNick]

Science and privacy aren't priorities for this White House -- they are inconveniences that serve to obstruct the capricious exercise of power.

Alcohol and nicotine are the most dangerous drugs that young people are exposed to by far. The externalities from excessive alcohol use, even on one occasion, are pretty self-evident. Cigarette smoking in teenage years portends poorly for long-term health.

As for the proposition from UltraClassic that parents should be obliged to show other parents or school administrators that their child is "drug-free," the default position in a society that actually values family privacy and personal autonomy -- instead of paying lip service to such when convenient -- would be that a child's drug use is a family matter absent a disruption to the school environment.

Schools should afford their students with the pertinent knowledge necessary to navigate increasingly complex social situations and to prevent harm to themselves. Abstinence only, in whatever context, only ensures that young people will be subject to their own spotty knowledge and that of their peers. With injury or death foreseeable results, a government policy that keeps children in a veil of ignorance is wantonly reckless, supremely dangerous and grossly immoral.

Drug testing empowers school officials and their designees to command a child to perform an excretory function on command. The lesson couldn't be clearer: submit to government authority without question or face punishment.

That chilling lesson may in fact be the real end game of student drug testing.

[WorkingClass]

Exactly. When I say pee you pee. Its training like the airports.

[UltraClassic]

Drug testing works very well in the military. Either do it all the way or don't do it at all.

If you recall (and I'm sure you don't because you are too young) in the very early '80s, a Marine Corp EA6B Prowler was attempting a night landing on theUSS Nimitz. The jet overshot the wire and crashed into the deck killing at least 15 sailors and Marines.

The pathology reports showed that a number of the sailors were high while on duty. Thus began a huge crack down on drug us in the service. Is the service completely clean? Of course not, but it's a heck of a lot cleaner than it use to be.

Now, as a libertarian, I say, smoke it, sniff it, shoot it, I don't care. But by the same token, as a libertarian, I say an employer has the right to screen out who he does not care to work for him. Smoke your dope and snort your coke, have a ball, but you are not working for me.

These are kids you speak of, required to attend public school. If my kid is in your public school, you better show me what you are doing to keep it drug and weapon free. Of course, just like Clinton and Gore, I'd never let my kid attend a public school for just such reasons, a complete loss of control and the will to do anything about it when it comes to drugs, weapons and gangs.

[WorkingClass]

Very interesting. An authoritarian libertarian. "If" the public schools were run like the Marine Corp they would be good enough for your unfortunate children?

[ADVOCATE4ZPG]

Where is NO random testing working?