DRUG TESTING FLAWED

I am very distressed about the movement to introduce random,
suspicionless drug testing in Whitefish. I was at the meeting April
7, and did not speak as I had to leave early. I feel I need to voice
this opinion as many other parents feel as I do.

First I would like to point to a recent case in Washington state that
trumped the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that you quoted: In a March 13
ruling (York v. Wahkiakum), the Washington state Supreme Court
rejected the random, suspicionless drug-testing of high school students.

In so doing, the court threw out a Wahkiakum School District policy
in effect since 1999 that forced would-be student athletes to
participate in drug tests if they wished to participate in school sports.

The state constitution offers protections to students that federal
courts have failed to find in the Fourth Amendment, the court held.

Drug tests are a so-called easy fix for school administrators who
must take a public stand on drugs but have had little success with
other programs. The theory is that the fear of getting caught with
tainted urine will force students not to do drugs. But there is very
little evidence that drug-testing programs have had any quantifiable
impact on substance abuse in the schools that use them.

Actually, statistics reflect almost no change. And it is quite
possible that, as students see drug testing more as a challenge than
a deterrent, drug use actually increases with testing.

Ultimately then, we will raise our children with an eroding idea of
personal privacy, an adversarial relationship with authorities and a
confusion as to why they shouldn't do drugs -- or at least, why they
shouldn't do certain drugs rather than teaching and trusting them to
make good choices for their future.

Random tests of any kind violate our Fourth Amendment rights. It is a
violation of privacy without just or reasonable cause.

At Rushville Consolidated High School in Indiana, they have employed
random drug-testing for the past six years for between 75 to 90
percent of its 900 or so students, including anyone who participates
in extracurricular activities or plays sports.

According to Janelle Brown on salon.com, "The kids say that they
continue to smoke and sniff and sip to their hearts' content. 'Drug
testing is costing a lot of taxpayer money; but anything that's going
on around here would be out of your system by the time you're
tested,' says one anonymous Rushville student. 'I don't know anyone
who is denied right now, but there are drugs everywhere.'"

Brown also illustrates some strategies to "cheat" the tests that
students employ.

Another study by Robert Taylor, professor at San Diego State, in The
Cato Journal. Taylor states, "Few people would question the
desirability of minimizing the use of drugs among minors. The use of
random, suspicionless drug-testing of school athletes as a means to
achieve this end is more open to question, however.

"Not only does this policy invade the privacy of a group of students
who are relatively unlikely to use drugs, but it also discourages
athletic participation and may actually lead to an increase in
overall drug use. Even in those cases where the adoption of such
testing leads to a reduction in overall drug use, compensating
behavior by student athletes guarantees that the reduction in use
will be smaller, perhaps much smaller, than expected.

"Until now, I have assumed that the sole objective of school
administrators is to minimize drug use. However, school
administrators may have preferences regarding not only the level of
overall use, but also its distribution. The policy of drug testing
high school athletes unambiguously increases the variance of drug use
in the student population -- use falls among the (inframarginal)
athletes who continue to participate in sports but increases among
the (marginal) athletes who 'quit the team' and revert to the higher
use levels of their nonathlete peers.

"Holding overall use fixed, redistributing drug use from low-level
users to high-level users may be considered undesirable, especially
if the negative health effects are very small for low-level use but
extremely large for high-level use. If so, then the policy of drug
testing student athletes looks even less attractive that it did before."

I urge you to look at all sides of this issue. It seems you are
rushing into a decision without adequate input and research of all
the information.

As for myself, I want to raise my children in a loving, trusting home
where they gain (or lose) trust based on their actions and choices. I
think of it as starting with a clean slate and as they grow, they
earn our trust and their freedom by making good choices.

To start by saying we don't trust them and that they have to prove us
wrong is not effective or empowering. Drug testing the kids and
making them "guilty until proven innocent" doesn't earn their respect.

It is an attempt to force respect and only causes a negative image of
authority and of the school system. It is against every gut feeling I
have as a mother, and I cannot allow it to happen for my children. It
is quite simply wrong.