Pubdate: Tue, 02 Jul 2002
Source: Florida Today (FL)
Copyright: 2002 Florida Today
Contact: http://www.floridatoday.com/forms/services/letters.htm
Website: http://www.flatoday.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/532
Author: Robert Sharpe
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Testing)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

DRUG TESTS HAVE DRAWBACKS

Brevard County School Superintendent Richard DiPatri is smart to consider 
the advantages and disadvantages of drug testing.

The Florida counties currently drug testing students who wish to enroll in 
extracurricular activities might want to follow DiPatri's lead and educate 
themselves on the drawbacks of such testing.

Student involvement in extracurricular activities such as sports has been 
shown to reduce drug use. It keeps kids busy during the hours they are most 
likely to get into trouble. Forcing students to undergo degrading urine 
tests as a prerequisite will only discourage such activities.

Drug testing also might compel users of relatively harmless marijuana to 
switch to harder drugs to avoid testing positive. Marijuana is the only 
drug that stays in the human body long enough to make urinalysis a deterrent.

Marijuana's organic metabolites are fat-soluble and can linger for days. 
Synthetic drugs are water-soluble and exit the body quickly.

Drug-testing profiteers do not readily volunteer this information, for 
obvious reasons.

The most commonly abused drug and the one most closely associated with 
violent behavior is almost impossible to detect with urinalysis. That drug 
is alcohol, and it takes far more student lives every year than all illegal 
drugs combined.

Instead of wasting money on counterproductive drug tests, schools should 
invest in reality-based drug education.

  By Robert Sharpe, Program Officer, Drug Policy Alliance, Washington, D.C. 
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager