Pubdate: Wed, 03 May 2000
Source: Trenton Times, The (NJ)
Copyright: 2000 The Times.
Contact:  http://www.njo.com/times/
Forum: http://forums.nj.com/
Author: Beth E. Fand

SAYING 'NO' TO DRUG TESTS

WEST WINDSOR -- When two Gloucester County school districts began randomly 
testing student athletes for drug use a few years ago, they contributed to 
a trend.

Since then, Hunterdon Central Regional High School in Raritan Township has 
joined 20 or more New Jersey districts in adopting such policies.

But officials in the West Windsor-Plainsboro district say they see no need 
to jump on the bandwagon, despite the arrest of 11 of their students Monday 
on charges they sold drugs on or near school property.

"We feel we deal with drug-prevention issues through the programs we have 
in school and our curriculum. Being proactive in education is the way we're 
helping our students," said spokeswoman Geraldine Hutner.

West Windsor-Plainsboro uses the "Amigos" peer counseling program and also 
teaches about the dangers of drug use in health classes in every grade, 
Hutner said.

She also pointed to the district's participation in the popular Drug Abuse 
Resistance Education (DARE) program, in which police officers meet with 
classes to explore the potential problems associated with drug use.

A national study released Monday by the University of North Carolina's 
School of Public Health said DARE is not effective, but Nick DeMauro, 
chairman and CEO of DARE New Jersey, said other studies have shown the 
program works.

The arrests don't give credence to the argument against DARE, and neither 
do they raise questions about the district's other programs, said Stan 
Katz, a member of the West Windsor-Plainsboro school board.

"YOU CAN'T SAY that any criminal act is proof that a program has failed," 
he said. "What did the program do for the general population in the school? 
Obviously everybody's disappointed that something like this happened, but 
it doesn't reflect on any programs used to alert kids to the consequences 
of their actions."

But even districts like West Windsor-Plainsboro, with its array of programs 
aimed at preventing substance abuse, might find random drug testing useful, 
proponents of such policies say.

Despite at least one threat to sue and many complaints that drug testing 
violates a student's constitutional right to privacy, officials at 
Hunterdon Central are so enthusiastic about their program that they have 
expanded it to include students in all extracurricular activities and those 
with campus parking permits.

Initially, Hunterdon Central had focused on athletes because two federal 
cases specified they can be tested because they have a lesser expectation 
of privacy than the general population, and that extracurricular activities 
are a privilege, not a right.

In December, district Superintendent Raymond Farley said a comparison of 
two student surveys -- one given prior to the start of the random 
drug-testing program and the other after -- showed that drug use among 
students had dropped.

The comparison showed that the percentage of students who used drugs rarely 
or not at all had risen for every grade level, with the biggest change seen 
among freshmen.

Moderate drug use had dropped in every grade except the junior class, where 
it stayed the same, and serious drug use had dropped in all grades, 
according to the comparison.

AT THE SAME TIME, the use of alcohol -- which is not among the drugs the 
school tests for -- increased in some categories.

In Gloucester County, West Deptford and Washington Township school 
officials admit they have no means of knowing whether their programs are 
deterring drug use.

In fact, there are few statistics on the success of such programs anywhere 
in the country since they are so new, said Mike Yaple, spokesman for the 
New Jersey School Boards Association.

Still, delegates to the association voted in November 1997 to support not 
only the testing of athletes but the expansion of random testing programs 
to affect additional students.

"When it comes to drug testing, no single program will cure all the drug 
woes of this nation," Yaple said yesterday. "But it may serve as a 
deterrent, give kids an excuse to avoid peer pressure and help communities 
get kids the treatment that they need."

But according to some parents and students, the American Civil Liberties 
Union and two think tanks on drug policy reform, randomly testing students 
for drugs doesn't make sense.

According to Deborah Jacobs, executive director of the ACLU, such policies 
would be harmful even if they didn't violate the state and federal 
constitutions.

"We're not sure why schools would want to do this, want to presume that 
students are guilty rather than innocent, why they would not want to 
demonstrate to students that having individualized suspicion is the only 
appropriate basis on which to conduct an invasive search," she said in 
December.

That kind of zero-tolerance policy can actually hurt children more than it 
helps them, agrees Ethan Nadelmann, director of the Lindesmith Center, a 
drug policy reform institute in New York City.

A BETTER IDEA is to give teenagers honest information about the effects of 
specific substances without holding a threat over their heads, since it's 
impossible to prevent every child from trying drugs, he said. Such a 
program would allow children who do try drugs to make responsible 
decisions, just as they might in deciding not to drink and drive, he said.

"The bottom line is not whether or not they use drugs, but making sure kids 
grow up safe and healthy, even if they're experimenting with stuff," 
Nadelmann said.

That's especially true in light of the government's overall failure to 
decrease drug use through programs that administer punishment, according to 
the executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of 
Marijuana Laws.

"One could point to any myriad of things the government does to advance the 
war on drugs, and almost none of them works," said Allen St. Pierre. "It 
really doesn't appear that nearly anything the government does has a 
positive or negative impact on the amount of drugs adults or children use."
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart