Pubdate: Thu, 10 Aug 2006
Source: Guardian, The (UK)
Copyright: 2006 Guardian Newspapers Limited
Contact:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/175
Author: Sarah Boseley, health editor
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?207 (Cannabis - United Kingdom)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Testing)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hr.htm (Harm Reduction)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?137 (Needle Exchange)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?142 (Supervised Injection Sites)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/walters.htm (Walters, John)

US DRUG CHIEF PROMOTES RANDOM TESTING IN SCHOOLS

America's drug tsar raised the stakes on drug testing in schools 
yesterday, suggesting that it could come to be seen as normal 
required and "responsible behaviour" in the same way that some US 
schools routinely test all pupils for tuberculosis before admission.

John Walters, director of the White House's office of national drug 
control policy, was speaking after meeting Jim Knight, an education 
minister. While Mr Walters said he had no authority to comment on the 
UK's drug policies, he made it clear that the US would continue to 
promote the tough line on drugs that has interested the British government.

"Some schools in the United States say a child needs to have a TB 
test," he said. "It's not considered to be an invasion of privacy. 
It's responsible behaviour. I believe we're very close to be able to 
think about that in terms of substance abuse."

Random drug testing has already started in schools in Kent. The 
government is taking part with Kent county council in a pilot 
project, overseen by Peter Walker, the headteacher of Abbey school in 
Faversham. In April Ruth Kelly, the then education secretary, told a 
teachers' conference that Abbey had found it "a hugely effective way 
of creating peer pressure against taking drugs in school".

Mr Walters said cannabis use was not just a matter of personal choice 
and the expression of freedom in the same way as a preference for 
clothes and hairstyles.  "We're still living as if substance abuse is 
a fashion statement," he said.

Taking a strong line against marijuana was "not being judgmental but 
showing that we care".

Up to 700 schools in the US have adopted random drug testing, he 
said, and one school a week was joining them. He said it was not his 
business to criticise the reclassification of cannabis in the UK but 
he believed cannabis was "a dead-end drug and a stepping stone to addiction".

He added: "There's no question that these substances acting on human 
beings are bad for them and leads them to reach out for other drugs . ".

The US policies were based on scientific evidence - some of it from 
the UK - that cannabis was linked to psychosis and schizophrenia. "We 
have a particular problem of our attitudes towards cannabis which 
hinders policy and hinders people going into treatment," he said.

"The attitude is that it's only marijuana. It doesn't help if your 
kids are playing Russian roulette that they are using a smaller 
calibre weapon."

Mr Walters strongly opposed harm reduction policies such as needle 
exchanges and injection rooms, saying they were "morally dubious". 
"It is a question of why you would want to use a Band-Aid against the 
serious disease of addiction when there is a solution," he said.

Permitting such harm reduction measures gave the impression that 
"society allows a stance of it's OK to be an addict", he said.

US opposition to harm reduction measures is likely to come under 
serious criticism at the International Aids conference in Toronto next week. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake