TESTS DON'T WORK

The White House sent a team of speakers to Charleston recently to persuade
parents, educators and public officials that randomly testing public school
students for drugs is a powerful tool to keep kids off drugs, (Post and
Courier, Page 1-A, Sept. 25).

Horsefeathers! The truth is that testing students for drugs does not reduce
drug use. Instead, it creates more problems than it solves, and it benefits
nobody except the companies that do the testing. That's why the American
Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association, the National
Education Association, the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug
Dependence, among others, all vehemently oppose it.

The presentation itself, sponsored by the White House Office of National
Drug Control Policy (the so-called "Drug Czar's Office") was slick. The
speakers were well-trained, knowledgeable, articulate and enthusiastic, and
they used eye-popping visuals to make their points. But for the most part,
they only allowed written questions with no follow-up questions allowed,
and they trivialized the serious problems that drug-testing experience has
revealed -- such as the fact that it does not work. The only national study
of the idea, performed by University of Michigan, showed that very clearly.
And when the ONDCP complained that the survey was flawed, the researchers
repeated the survey to take those complaints into account and came up with
the identical results.

There are many other drawbacks to randomly drug testing students. It
assumes kids are guilty and forces them to prove their innocence. It sends
them the message that we don't trust them, which drives a wedge between
adults and teens.

It encourages teens to switch from testable drugs, such as marijuana, to
drugs that do not register on the tests but are more dangerous, such as
glue-sniffing or worse.

It raises all sorts of legal and moral questions. What happens, for
instance, when a child's reputation is sullied by a false negative?

It discourages teenagers from participating in extracurricular activities,
which many studies have proven are among the few things that are effective
in reducing drug use among youngsters.

There are many other problems with drug testing, which are far too numerous
to list here. I can only hope parents, educators and public officials will
not take the drug czar's word as truth but, instead, will take a long, hard
look at the facts -- especially who really benefits from testing -- before
they leap into something that could damage our children for years to come.

Skip Johnson

Vice President

South Carolinians for Drug Law Reform

72 Meeting St.