Pubdate: Mon, 01 Jul 2002 Source: Honolulu Star-Bulletin (HI) Contact: 2002 Honolulu Star-Bulletin Website: http://www.starbulletin.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/196 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Testing) SCHOOL DRUG TESTS ARE NOT THE SOLUTION The Issue: Schools have been allowed by the U.S. Supreme Court to subject public school students participating in extracurricular activities to random drug tests. AN Oklahoma school's policy of conducting random drug tests on students participating in extracurricular activities may be misguided, but the U.S. Supreme Court has given its stamp of approval. Proponents of drug tests would do better to extend them to all students. Other school-based drug prevention programs remain preferable to intrusive searches. Drug abuse, especially the increased use of crystal methamphetamine and the amphetamine-based hallucinogen Ecstasy, is a problem in Hawaii's high schools. However, it has not reached the "epidemic" level that Justice Clarence Thomas described in allowing schools to resort to random testing of students. Public school students acquired their rights to be free from random searches in 1985, when the Supreme Court rejected the previously prevailing idea that principals and teachers were surrogate parents who could open any student's locker or backpack. The court ruled then that school officials were government officials bound by constitutional restrictions on searches. Ten years later, the court held that students participating in sports could be randomly tested for drugs. Last week's ruling widens the random testing to include students participating in any extracurricular activity from the French Club to the Future Farmers of America. Legal scholars and even some of the justices say the ruling logically extends the subject of random searches to the entire student body. Drug testing has become common in college and professional sports. The military conducts random tests of service personnel, and companies occasionally test their employees to assure a drug-free workplace. However, Hawaii high school students, even athletes, have not yet been subjected to random drug tests. Keith Amemiya, executive director of the Hawaii High School Athletic Association, has cited studies showing that students who participate in sports are less likely to use drugs than is the general student population. Sports, along with other extracurricular activities, can influence student participants to refrain from using illegal drugs. Random tests focused on such groups could result only in drug users walking away from such groups, increasing their susceptibility to further drug abuse. - --- MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk