Pubdate: Thu, 07 Jul 2005
Source: Athens News, The (OH)
Copyright: 2005, Athens News
Contact:  http://www.athensnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1603
Author:  Terry Smith, Athens News Editor
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Testing)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?225 (Students - United States)

WEARING THIN: HIGH-SCHOOL DRUG TESTING PIDDLES AWAY OUR AMERICAN
BIRTHRIGHT

Drug testing in the schools is a bad idea, and here's why. The usual form 
- -- testing athletes, cheerleaders and other extracurricular participants -- 
invades the privacy of innocent youngsters, in order to find the small 
minority who are using.

In most high schools, including Alexander in western Athens County, the 
drug problem, while a concern, doesn't warrant taking this extreme action. 
Drug and alcohol abusers generally exhibit behaviors that can be detected 
and punished without police-state tactics reminiscent of George Orwell's 
"1984."

Simple observation can work as well as examining urine for proscribed 
substances, is cheaper, and has no risk of finding false positives or 
misidentifying legal substances.

Ironically, about eight or nine years ago, Alexander High School was the 
site of one of the biggest debacles in the local war on drugs. Invited by 
school officials, police officers wearing black hoods combed the school 
grounds with drug-sniffing dogs and came up empty-handed. All concerned 
were appropriately embarrassed.

So what's the down side of reassuring parents and teachers that athletes, 
cheerleaders and teens who drive to school are clean? If they're obeying 
the law, why should they be bothered by an easy and brief drug test?

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I'd say one disadvantage of 
high-school drug testing is the slow death of democracy and the American way.

Each time society imposes another invasive check on Americans' behavior, 
our privacy and freedom is further eroded. Rational adults can gauge the 
effects of these things and decide whether it's justified to invade a 
little privacy in order to make sure the airline pilot is sober, the 
chemical company isn't dumping poison into the rivers or the Wall Street 
broker isn't cheating.

However, if you've been raised in the classic American culture of freedom 
and independence -- fiercely coveting these rights and privileges -- you're 
damned reluctant to give these things up. You make sure it's a last resort 
before you approve of whittling away another right or freedom.

But what happens when children grow up in a culture in which authority 
figures feel they have the right to look in kids' stuff whenever they like, 
to invade their private space, to pretty much know everything about them, 
all in the name of fighting drugs?

They grow up into adults who meekly accept whatever their government has in 
store for them, in order to confront the threat of the moment. Drugs, 
terrorism, or comets speeding toward earth -- we're under constant assault. 
The anti-authoritarian itch, the reflexive distrust of snooping government, 
the passionate attachment to freedom and privacy that once defined this 
nation -- all of it's gradually being bred out of the American gene pool.

OK, I'm getting carried away here, but it really is depressing to think 
that kids today are in danger of losing much of that idealism -- the loopy 
faith in freedom and independence that defined Americans for the past 230 
years. Can you imagine Thomas Jefferson, John Wayne, JFK or Ronald Reagan 
meekly accepting an order to pee into a cup?

Schools can fight drugs and alcohol -- both serious threats -- without 
going all Gestapo on the kids. School board members and parents need to get 
a grip and remember their own school days. A few kids used drugs and 
alcohol a lot, some kids experimented a few times, and some never touched 
the stuff. The kids who went overboard usually got caught, and in any 
event, couldn't deal with the responsibilities and requirements of an 
active extra-curricular schedule.

Schools have ways of dealing with these problems without insulting and 
humiliating the innocent kids by requiring them to piss away their American 
birthright into a paper cup. School officials, board members and parents 
who support and accept this sort of thing should re-read the Constitution 
so they know the consequences of what they're doing.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom