US PUPILS FACE RANDOM DRUG TESTING

The Supreme Court Is Set To Reject A Teenager's Challenge, In A Victory For
The Right

Twenty-seven million schoolchildren are facing the prospect of random drug
testing after a landmark court case described by self-styled religious
fundamentalist 'drug warriors' in the United States as their greatest victory.

It is a startling example of the ideological shift in American politics
since George W. Bush moved into the White House.

The Supreme Court is expected within the next few days to rule against a
teenager from the Midwest who was forced to undergo a drug test when she
signed up to sing in the school choir. Lindsay Earls, a former pupil at
Tecumseh High, Oklahoma, had to urinate into a cup while a teacher listened
outside the lavatory cubicle.

She said the test - which proved negative - was physically degrading and a
gross infringement of her civil rights. 'I thought it was real intrusion
into my privacy,' says Earls, now 19 and a student at a top university. 'If
I'm not taking drugs, then I shouldn't have to prove myself innocent.'

Her case went before the court earlier this year, where the US Solicitor
General's office, headed by Bush ally Ted Olsen, startled - and delighted
right-wing anti-drug groups by arguing there was no constitutional bar to
drug testing every pupil in the state system. 'Five years ago we were going
nowhere, now we have the government on our side. Random testing for all
pupils is a done deal,' said DeForest Rathbone, who has been fighting a
20-year 'drug war' at the head of the National Institute of Citizen
Anti-Drug Policy. 'Thanks be to almighty God for coming on to our side and
helping us protect the kids from drugs.'

Despite his low-profile position, Olsen has been leading the rightward
march of the Bush administration, setting out the government's ideological
position on a range of issues - from abortion rights to gun laws - where he
has quietly supported causes previously considered beyond the pale even by
Republican administrations.

Currently, only pupils taking part in athletic activities can legally be
made to undergo random drug testing, but Tecumseh High was one of several
schools which unilaterally decided to test participants in all
extra-curricular activities, such as chess and debating.

Earls's legal challenge has been backed by Graham Boyd, a lawyer for the
American Civil Liberties Union, who argued that a random drug-testing
programme was both an infringement of constitutional rights and of dubious
worth in fighting the spread of drug use.

'If drug testing becomes rites of passage for an entire generation of
students, then that same generation is going to enter adulthood with lower
expectations of the privacy they should be entitled to,' Boyd said yesterday.

He added that there was no evidence that random testing in other sectors,
such as the workplace, reduced drug use. Testing in schools might force
teenage drug users to switch from marijuana - which remains detectable in
the body for weeks - to harder drugs like crack cocaine, which leaves the
bloodstream after 24 hours.

He said he was optimistic the court would rule in his client's favour but
admitted an adverse decision could affect the 27 million pupils in state
schools. 'If we end up losing this case and drug testing becomes widespread
the only happy note to come out of the affair would be that it will
radicalise young people against the government's so-called war on drugs -
they will resent being accused of misconduct when they have done nothing
wrong. They are turning the war on drugs into a war against teenagers - and
it could backfire.'

Despite the ACLU's public optimism, most observers believe the Supreme
Court's built-in right-wing majority will vote to extend testing.

'When you have got kids involved, that's a battlefield that's going to
favour conservative, parent-type groups,' said William McColl, director of
the Washington-based Drug Policy Alliance, which campaigns for liberal drug
reform.

One such 'parent-type group' is the Florida Drug Free America Foundation,
which is partly funded by grants from the Bush administration. Katherine
Ford, its director, said yesterday her organisation supported random
testing in all state schools.

'I'm something of a nut when it comes to the issue of drug testing,' said
Ford, who said she regularly tested her own 17-year-old daughter.

'If a student is suspected of having head lice, school nurses will check
all the other students and if any of them have head lice they will be sent
home. No one claims it is a violation of a child's civil rights to have
their head checked for lice. It is no different with drugs - except the
harm that comes from using drugs is far greater.'