BUSH BARNSTORMER TOUTS TEEN DRUG TESTS

Duval Schools Still Have No Plans to Implement Random Screenings.

Bertha Madras understood that people in Jacksonville weren't paying
much attention to drug use among teenagers on primary election day.

One of the top anti-drug officials working for President Bush, Madras
was stopping in as part of a nationwide barnstorming tour to spread
the message of random drug testing for schoolchildren.

It's a controversial message - the American Civil Liberties Union
opposes it on privacy grounds, but the Bush administration has
advocated it for the past seven years. And the Supreme Court has
ruled that students who take part in extracurricular activities such
as football and band can be subject to random drug tests.

Duval County school officials say that there are no plans to
implement testing in public schools. Duval schools actively encourage
students to avoid drugs.

On Tuesday, speaking before about 50 people at the Jacksonville
Marriott on Salisbury Road, Madras touted random testing as an
effective way for communities to control the flow of illicit drugs to
schoolchildren.

Madras pointed to the fact that the number of teenagers abusing drugs
has decreased by about 860,000 in the last few years.

"This is a program and a policy that will endure long after the
elections are over," he said.

Tuesday's event, billed as a student drug-testing summit, included
how local school districts could apply for grants to fund random drug testing.

Nassau County, the only school system in Northeast Florida that has
received federal funds for random drug testing, tests students
allowed to use motor vehicles on school grounds.

Kathleen Bowles, supervisor for safe and healthy schools with the
Duval County school system, attended the summit.

Officials with the ACLU and the Drug Policy Alliance, a group
critical of the government's no-tolerance drug policy, have expressed
opposition to random drug testing.

Madras said critics don't understand that the goal is to improve
public health. "This is not a punitive approach," he said. "It's
confidential. The school can only share the results with parents and
a school counselor."

Jacksonville ACLU staff attorney Zeina Salam said the confidentiality
claim is inaccurate.

"Most of the time, if you fail a drug test, you get kicked off of the
[after-school] activity you participate in," Salam said. "It isn't
that hard for the other kids to figure out what happened."