ZERO TOLERANCE FOR DRUG-FRIENDLY BABY BOOMERS

WHEN the Australian National Council on Drugs (ANCD) released a report
last week condemning the idea of drug tests in schools, ABC 702 host
Deb Cameron told a little anecdote.

Walking down the street, she had once passed a boy of about 16 in
school uniform hiding under some stairs smoking a bong. She asked him:
"Does your mother know you're not at school?" He responded that he had
a late start.

Cameron didn't mention the drugs he was smoking. Nor did she seem to
make any judgment about his drug-taking.

A listener later chipped her in an email saying she should have
reported the boy to his school.

If a conventional middle-aged journalist and mother of two cannot
bring herself even to express disapproval to a schoolboy smoking a
bong, by himself, on his way to school, what hope is there of
imparting an anti-drug message to teenagers?

The baby boomer generation can't just "be cool" about the illicit drug
use of their children's generation and outsource the intolerance to
police, courts and schools.

But Cameron's tolerant attitude is common, reflected in the drug
council's ready acceptance of a Flinders University report against
drug testing.

The report Drug Testing In Schools - Evidence, Impacts And
Alternatives commissioned by the ANCD, claims testing regimes were
ineffective, too expensive, and "undermine child-school and
parent-child relations".

"In short, there is insufficient evidence to support the use of drug
testing," said the principal author, Professor Ann Roche, Director of
Flinders University's National Centre for Education and Training on
Addiction.

But Roche also was reported by Of Substance magazine in 2006 to
believe zero tolerance on drugs in schools "simply doesn't work".

Her report says that since "Prevalence of illicit drug use by
schoolchildren has been declining for over a decade ... detection [is]
a technically challenging task".

But drug use has been declining precisely because of a zero-tolerance
approach instituted by the former government, which was supposed to be
led by the ANCD.

Drug testing, used by schools in the United States, is just part of
the armory, and some private schools in Sydney have been testing
students for drugs for a decade.

The ANCD's report also claims that, for the biggest drug users,
"including the poorer academic performers and indigenous students",
such "punitive and inquisitorial methods of deterrence are
ill-advised".

But these are precisely the children most in need of a firm hand and
guidance away from a path of self-destruction.

And who said drug testing was punitive? Discovering a student is using
drugs allows a school and parents to intervene early with education
and treatment, and gives the greatest chance of preventing
irreversible damage to the still-developing brain and to prevent the
possibility the child will become a lifetime addict. The report makes
much of the fact "two-thirds of submissions received from
professionals were opposed to drug testing in schools". But there were
only 33 submissions, and these were solicited from "key stakeholders"
- - including "civil liberties commentators".

The report's "research" also came from an online survey "distributed
through various media including the National Centre for Education and
Training on Addiction website, professional email distribution lists,
conferences and professional magazines".

The response: a grand total of 284. "The majority of survey
respondents were opposed to testing in schools." No kidding.

The rest of the report's research came from "a comprehensive
literature review" - in other words, reading selected research by
other people; and "analysis of existing datasets": that is, referring
to the 2005 Australian Secondary Students' Alcohol and Drug Survey.

The report also contains some extraordinarily loaded statements such
as "teenage drug use does not inevitably lead to problem drug use" and
"not all young people are pressured by their peers to start using drugs".

Is this any reason not to attempt to prevent drug problems in other
teens?

Despite the shortcomings of the report, Gino Vumbaca, executive
director of the Australian National Council on Drugs, has endorsed it
enthusiastically, writing in a newspaper: "Importing a school-based,
drug-testing policy that is not backed up by any evidence that it
works, and may even be harmful, defies commonsense."

In fact, in the US drug testing has been a useful tool for more than
1200 schools in combatting drug use.

It is not the magic bullet. But one of its benefits, according to Jo
Baxter, executive director of Drugs Free Australia, is that it gives
students a reason to say no when offered drugs. The US reportedly has
lower rates of cannabis use and teenage binge drinking than we do, so
they must be doing something right.

And, thanks to Australia's 10-year Tough On Drugs strategy,
spearheaded by the ANCD under founding chairman Salvation Army Major
Brian Watters, drug use here has been dropping steadily.

Teenage drug use has plummeted between 1996 and 2005, from 16 per cent
to 7 per cent of 12- to 15-year-olds admitted to having used an
illicit drug, mainly cannabis, in the previous month, in 2005. But the
fact remains that one-fifth of 12- to 17-year-olds will have used an
illicit drug before they leave school. Schools should have available
every possible tool to protect children.

And some of the most powerful tools are judgmental and intolerant
adults.

Society's not ready for this

THERE is no polite way of saying this ... the sight of the alleged
"pregnant man" who hit the news last week is enough to turn anyone's
stomach. It is simply repulsive to see a person with a beard and a
man's flat chest sporting a swollen pregnant belly. It is wrong in the
most visceral way.

Whether or not the photograph and first-person story of the "pregnant"
Thomas Beatie, 34, which appeared in American gay and lesbian magazine
The Advocate is a hoax, it has caused a frenzy of comment around the
world. Beatie, aka Tracy Lagondino, is a global freak show and if
there really is a baby girl involved, God help her.

But if Beatie, a gay rights activist, thought she was scoring a point
for gender reassignment, she was foolishly mistaken. All she has done
is prove that she is a woman, "an individual of the sex that bears
young", as the traditional medical dictionary defines it. No matter
how many male hormones you flood her body with, no matter how many
breasts she has had surgically removed, no matter how many pieces of
paper legally declare her male, no matter how hairy or freaky looking
she becomes, she doesn't have a Y chromosome. That is reserved for
males, "an individual of the sex that produces sperm".

She is not one of the rare people born with genuine intersex
conditions such as Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, but a lifestyle
gender bender who has chosen to live as a pretend man, legally married
to a woman in Oregon.

When the couple wanted children, Beatie simply stopped her fortnightly
testosterone injections, waited until her period returned, shipped in
some donor sperm and hey presto, she's five months pregnant.

Beatie is entitled to live in whatever way she wants with the rest of
the world happily ignoring her private life. But by turning her
pregnancy into a political act, she invites censure. Is society ready
for this pregnant husband?, asks The Advocate. Short answer: No.