Pubdate: Thu, 23 Oct 2003
Source: Winnipeg Free Press (CN MB)
Copyright: 2003 Winnipeg Free Press
Contact:  http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/502
Author: Nick Martin

PRINCIPAL DISAPPOINTED DRUG TESTS KILLED

Was Eager To See Court Challenge On Privacy Issue

THE principal of Winkler's Garden Valley Collegiate says he's disappointed 
the school didn't get a chance to go to court to find out if random drug 
testing of students would stand up to a Charter of Rights and Freedoms 
challenge.

"I wish it would have went to the courts to seek a challenge," Principal 
Dan Giesbrecht said yesterday. "I'm pretty strong and adamant on this -- 
it's frustrating."

Garden Valley trustees abandoned the plan last week after the provincial 
ombudsman concluded that the division had not justified intruding on 
students' right to privacy.

"I don't see the political will to take it any further," Giesbrecht said. 
He pointed out that the ombudsman's report was just a recommendation, and 
was not binding.

"There's a price we're paying as a society" for drugs, Giesbrecht said. "It 
was just another way of dealing with it. We're not giving up."

The high school would have randomly picked varsity athletes and sent them 
to a nearby clinic for drug testing. Giesbrecht said that even discussing 
the proposal was enough to have some students come forward and say that 
they had drug problems, and ask for and receive counselling and treatment.

Parents were strongly in favour, said Giesbrecht, who offers parents drug 
kits at cost so they can check their children at home.

"They're almost like a litmus test. You dip it into the urine, and away you 
go," he said.

"It was always meant as rehabilitation. It was always meant as support; it 
was not meant as policing," Giesbrecht said.

Giesbrecht said that before the proposal went to school trustees, he had 
heavily researched drug-testing issues, methods, and accuracy, and spoke to 
several companies, including Accutest Occupational Health Services of 
Winnipeg. The company conducts drug testing for the transportation industry.

He predicted that Garden Valley would have opted for saliva testing, which 
he said is less intrusive than urine or blood tests, or for taking hair 
samples for analysis. "The labs are so accurate now," he said. "Had it gone 
forward, there would have been a tendering process" that could have seen 
Accutest handle the analysis of the Winkler school's drug testing.

Accutest operations manager Colleen Robinson said that her firm would have 
offered its services to school divisions throughout Manitoba had Garden 
Valley's drug testing gone ahead.

Robinson was unhappy that Keith Thomas, risk manager for the Manitoba 
Association of School Trustees, said last week that randomly testing 
students is "dead in the water." Thomas doubted any school division would 
risk the legal troubles it would likely face for potentially violating 
students' human rights through random testing.

"I don't think (Thomas) recognizes the value of drug testing," she said.

A spokesman for Education Minister Ron Lemieux said yesterday the minister 
will not decide whether to comment until he reads the ombudsman's report. 
An aide to Lemieux said The Winnipeg Free Press is "pushing" student drug 
testing, even though the issue has been settled.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens