Pubdate: Sun, 14 Apr 2002
Source: Medford Mail Tribune (OR)
Copyright: 2002 The Mail Tribune
Contact:  http://www.mailtribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/642
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Testing)

GOOD RIDDANCE TO DRUG TESTS

It looks as though something good may come of Oregon's school budget 
problems after all. Money trouble has persuaded the Prospect School 
District to do without drug tests for student athletes next year.

The district and its neighbor, Butte Falls, are the only two in the county 
that force students to take the tests as a condition of participating in 
school sports. Now Prospect says the tighter budget it expects next year 
includes no room for the $1,500 drug-testing program.

It would be best for students if the district never found room for it again.

Put aside for a minute the far-reaching issues drug tests of student 
athletes raise, including discrimination of a specific student group, 
constitutional questions around illegal searches and whether it's 
unreasonably embarrassing to urinate in a cup in a school bathroom while 
others wait in line nearby.

The tests' most fundamental flaws may be the practical ones - that they 
offer only false assurance that students are, in fact, drug free. 
Prospect's tests screen for marijuana, opium, hallucinogens and 
methamphetamines, but the district's biggest student drug problem is surely 
alcohol. And kids say athletes who take drugs screened by the tests stop 
using before the tests and start again after.

Parents of course want to protect their kids from drugs, but that's all but 
impossible to accomplish with a policy of any sort. Less invasive and 
fairer approaches such as drug-free pledges seem at least as effective as 
urine testing - and a lot more respectful of kids.

Prospect school leaders ought to consider that as they decide how to deal 
with the potential for drug use among student athletes long term. Even when 
the budget picture looks better, we think they'll find urine tests never 
were money well spent.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager