Pubdate: Thu, 16 Mar 2000 Source: Texas Observer (TX) Copyright: 2000 The Texas Observer Contact: 307 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701 Website: http://www.texasobserver.org/ Section: Left Field Note: The request for help at the end of the article did appear in the original. REEFER MADNESS A few weeks ago, the National Basketball Association congratulated itself on discovering that only 2.8 percent of its players - twelve of 430 - had tested positive this season for marijuana use. Since previous grapevine estimates had run to 60-70 percent, the revised totals (officially confidential, but leaked to the New York Times) seemed cause for celebration - at least until somebody pointed out that all the players had been warned of the scheduled tests in advance. That led to an obvious and embarrassing question: Did those twelve guys get the memo, or were they too high to read it? But the high profile, sports drug headlines also obscure a more fundamental question - when did employers acquire some absolute authority to force their employees to piss in a bottle? Employers began by targeting "public safety" positions - airline pilots, long distance truckers - but increasingly, the national anti-drug hysteria has conspired to make the boss-controlled urine-testing seem normal: "You Want a job? Give us a sample." So there should be little surprise that in Texas, the reefer madness has taken another, more absurdly sinister step. The school board of Lockney, a small town forty miles northeast of Lubbock, strongly encouraged by superintendent Raymond Lusk, has decreed that every student from the sixth to the twelfth grade be regularly tested for the bodily presence of drugs. Lusk, speaking in the circular logic beloved of authoritarians, told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, "It's a long story, but society has just brought us to this point. We do a lot of things [now] that at one time we would say was not the school's job to do. Schools have kind of become all things and our job description has expanded." Lusk apparently considers his current job titles to include cop, judge, jury, and executioner. He claims the new policy is primarily intended to help students resist "peer pressure" to use drugs. Under the new policy, students who test positive will be suspended from extracurricular activities for twenty-one days, serve three days of in-school suspension, and be required to attend three sessions of drug counseling. Faculty members testing positive will be fired immediately. And in a particularly bullying flourish, any child who refuses to be tested - - even with the support of his or her parents - will be considered to have failed the test and be subject to the same sanctions. That became an issue when local rancher Larry Tannahill, father of twelve-year-old sixth-grader Brady, informed the district that he would not sign the waiver allowing Brady to be tested for drugs. "What scares me the most, if I do not sign it," said Tannahill, "they are going to punish my child for what I do, and I definitely do not think that's right." Calling the new policy unconstitutional, Tannahill has threatened to sue the school district in federal court if the policy is not repealed. In a conversation with Left Field, Tannahill said that while other townspeople have privately supported his family's stand, thus far none have stepped forward publicly. "Of course my family has stuck with us," he said. "I've got some support, but there's not a whole lot steppin' out and saying much. But they're having a hard time trying to, because they're trying to hang on to their jobs, and the people that come and do business with them. And of course they're protecting their children." Tannahill added that on the other hand, no one in town has harassed him or his children (he also has an eleven year old child not yet subject to the new policy) for refusing to cooperate. "We have had teachers who have come up secretly to them," he said, "and told them they admired what we're doing. Kinda stuff like that, and I get people who come up around town and talk to me about it. Lot of them, either that or they call, but they don't want to get completely involved in the situation yet - I think they're all just waiting to see what will happen." Asked if it was initially his son's idea to refuse the test, Tannahill paused. "Well, sorta kinda. It was kind of a mutual understanding. He knew I wasn't going to like it whenever he heard about it at school. I have talked to him about it, before we kinda carried on much further, and he thought we were doing the right thing." Young Brady was even more West-Texas loconic than his father. "I don't think it's right," he said, "because they say we have to do it." Had any of his friends been supportive? "There was a kid on the bus that said, 'That's good that you're standing up for your rights.'" Was anybody criticizing him? "Hunh-uh." Tannahill says there's still a chance that the school board, some of whose members have expressed doubts, might reverse itself (another meeting on the policy is scheduled for March 23). But he's not optimistic. "We've got some that have kind of wavered, thinking now, 'Wait a minute, what'd we do?' But I really feel like it's probably going to go to the federal court to start with. They may change their mind - but I'm gonna tell you, I won't." Although the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed mandatory school drug-testing for hazardous sports like football, Dallas lawyer Michael Lenz (who is representing Tannahill on behalf of the Texas A.C.L.U.) calls the prospects on this case "excellent." "The Supreme Court has carved out an exception for athletics as a 'reasonable' limitation on student rights," Lenz said, "but the constitution clearly prohibits unreasonable [searches]. In Brady's case, he and his family are refusing a blanket requirement for which there is no reasonable justification," Readers who wish to support the Tannahills can send contributions or write to the A.C.L.U. of Texas, P.O. Box 3629, Austin, Texas 78764 - --- MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart