Pubdate: Fri, 11 Oct 2002 Source: Macon Telegraph (GA) Copyright: 2002 The Macon Telegraph Publishing Company Contact: http://www.macontelegraph.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/667 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Testing) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth) SCHOOL TOBACCO TESTS OUTRAGEOUS For those who encounter teen-agers everyday, America's educators often seem to have no idea how to deal with them. Since way before Nancy Reagan started urging young people to "just say no," teen-age rebellion at its simplest can be boiled down to one simple truth: The more you preach to kids not to do something, the more they're going to at least want to give it a try. When it comes to the problem of tobacco use, however, some educators have either forgotten this lesson or never learned it in the first place. In school districts around Birmingham, Ala., in Blackford, Ind., even in Decatur, Ga., schools have begun random testing of students to detect tobacco use. Beyond the total lack of respect for teen-agers' rights as individuals, this action makes us wonder if we somehow missed an alarming increase in tobacco use among teens. Not at all. The University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research conducts an annual Monitoring the Future study of about 45,000 students from more than 400 schools nationwide. The survey found that, in 2000, 15 percent of eighth-graders, 24 percent of 10th-graders and 31 percent of 12th-graders reported smoking at least one cigarette in the past 30 days. As troubling as these numbers are, they are a healthy decline from the mid 1990s: In 1996, 21 percent of eighth-graders, 30.4 percent of 10th-graders and 36.5 percent of 12th-graders admitted to what the study calls "current smoking." What does this show? Students have been getting good advice about the dangers of smoking, either from their parents, peers or teachers, and are able to act on it. Testing for tobacco only undermines any trust that has been built between teens and the people who influence them most, while tearing down their often fragile self-esteem. Shawn Heller, executive director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy in Washington, said of the testing: "We're making schools like prisons." Well, not quite. Even prisoners are not subjected to such draconian measures. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom