SCHOOLS SAY YES TO DRUG TESTING

Parents Want The Random Checks, But Opponents Say The Practice Is Useless.

PAGOSA SPRINGS -- Dillon Sandoval would welcome an easy out -- a
solid reason to say no to the dope-smoking among students in his high school.

"If a kid has an excuse not to do it, people will stop asking him.
Then they'd maybe even stop using," said Sandoval, a 16-year-old
sophomore at Pagosa Springs High.

The reason to just say no is coming.

At least three districts in Colorado conduct random drug tests on
students in extracurricular activities. Holyoke plans to begin
testing next year. And representatives from schools in several other
places -- Weld County, Durango, Archuleta County, Colorado Springs,
Dolores and Towaoc -- were all in Pagosa Springs recently to hear
federal drug warriors pitch the program.

"We are not waging a war on drugs; we are waging a war of defense --
a defense of the basis of humanity, and that is our brain," said Dr.
Bertha Madras, the White House deputy drug czar in charge of reducing
demand for drugs.

While research has not found that random testing reduces student drug
use, testing is catching on. An estimated 4,155 schools across the
country test urine, saliva, hair and even blood of students involved
in extracurricular competitive activities -- covering students in
everything from 4-H to football to the debate team.

But the tests are stirring ire among civil libertarians who see them
as a violation of individual rights, a threat to a school's sense of
community and a dangerous extension of government power.

"I think the war on drugs is becoming a war on people," said Cathryn
Hazouri, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of
Colorado. "They are making the school into a watchdog, and that's
more disruptive to the educational process than it is protective."

Summit draws crowd

Madras and her Office of National Drug Control Policy staff stopped
in Pagosa Springs last month, peddling random drug testing as the
best tool to deter, identify and treat drug use among students. It
was the 30th "Random Student Drug Testing Summit" since President
Bush began pushing the practice in 2004. The summit drew more than 45
Colorado school administrators, teachers, coaches and parents.

The Office of National Drug Control Policy identified 1,000 testing
programs at schools. Based on that, the office figures there are more
than 4,100 such programs nationwide, including 1,950 at middle schools.

The schools tend to be clustered in a few states, with testing
typically beginning in rural counties and moving into more urban areas.

"There are pockets, with strong advocates, where it just catches on,"
Madras said. "Our hope is that at the state, district and community
level, people take the reins."

Schools that test can find plenty of federal funding to support their
programs. Bush in 2004 boosted funding for schools seeking random
drug testing from $2 million to $23 million and has kept annual
funding at similar levels since.

3 Colorado schools test

Colorado has at least three schools randomly drug-testing
extracurricular students: the 100-student Sierra Grande High School
in Blanca, the 230-student Ignacio High School and the 165-student
Rangely High School. About three-quarters of the students in each
school are involved in extracurricular competitive activities and
susceptible to random testing.

"I don't think there is anything wrong with it at all, and I've never
heard anyone complain," said Hastin Boulger, a senior football player
and track athlete at Rangely who has participated in his school's
random drug-testing program for three years. "If you are doing the
drugs, you don't really deserve to do the sports."

Ignacio spends $300 a year testing the urine of six randomly selected
student athletes three times a season. Since the testing began in
1999, no student athlete has tested positive.

"We don't see anything negative about it," said Melanie Taylor, the
school's assistant principal and athletic director. "We are not
seeing drugs and alcohol as a big problem in our school."

Taylor said before installing the program, drugs and alcohol were
problems at Ignacio. The mere threat of testing seems to have played
the largest role in curtailing drug and alcohol use, she said.

Parents and community leaders in Pagosa Springs have seen the
increasing use of drugs among local students and have arranged for a
voluntary testing program that delivers things like free pizzas and
ski passes from local businesses to students who stay clean.

"It is a problem, and we need to do something," said Joanne Irons, a
Pagosa Springs parent who formed a drug-prevention coalition that is
working with the Archuleta School District to install random testing.
"I think this summit has changed some views in the district."

Parents advocate tests

Administrators from several more Colorado schools -- including Battle
Mountain High in Avon, Pagosa Springs and Holyoke High -- are
studying random testing for their extracurricular students. At
Holyoke, parents asked school administrators to begin random drug testing.

"Their kids talk to them and tell them about the prevalence of drugs
and alcohol not in the school but on the weekends. They want it
stopped," said Stephen Bohrer, superintendent of the Holyoke School
District, which next fall will install a random drug-testing program
for 85 percent of the 300 students at Holyoke High.

So far, scientific studies have not shown random drug testing is a
deterrent. Dr. Linn Goldberg, a professor of medicine at Oregon
Health and Science University in Portland, conducted a two-year
clinical trial that found drug and alcohol use by student athletes
did not differ between schools with random testing and schools
without. Goldberg found that student athletes had little faith in drug testing.

"It doesn't make sense to spend people's money on programs that have
not been shown to be effective, especially while other programs do
work," said Goldberg, whose study was funded by the National
Institute on Drug Abuse and was published last fall in the Journal
for Adolescent Health. "Random drug testing is a program driven by
people just wanting to do something and not really looking hard
enough, saying, 'Does this really work?' "

Benefits questioned

Similarly, a 2003 study by University of Michigan researchers
published in the Journal of School Health found drug use at schools
with random testing programs was almost identical to that at schools
without programs.

Supporters say unequivocally but anecdotally that drug testing works.
Hunterdon Central High School in Flemington, N.J., has been randomly
testing students since 1996 and has emerged as a national flagship
for drug testing.

After winning a 2000 lawsuit challenge by the American Civil
Liberties Union, the school resumed testing. Today, the 3,000-student
school boasts 1,900 extracurricular students in its testing pool.
Last year, the school spent $8,000 for 526 random tests, and eight
were positive for drug use.

"We are spending the money for the 518 who tested negative," said
Hunterdon's principal, Chris Steffne, at the Pagosa Springs summit.
"We always focus on deaths and accidents and dropouts and overdoses,
but we often forget about the lost opportunities."

Every speaker at the summit noted that any testing program must
respect student confidentiality, as dictated by the U.S. Supreme
Court. Records of positive tests must be treated like medical records
and eventually destroyed, Madras said.

But coaches, principals, teachers and students acknowledge there is
little privacy within the school community. A kid tests positive and
isn't suited up for the big game, everyone knows why.

"If they are embarrassed because everyone knows, maybe they won't do
it again," said Rangely's Boulger, who knows of two kids who were
nabbed under his school's testing program. "Drugs are illegal. Nobody
forced them to do it. They made the choice, and they pay the consequences."

It's that lack of privacy that worries opponents. "They say it's
confidential, but that doesn't mean it is," said Mike Krause with the
Independence Institute, a Golden policy research organization that is
critical of expanding the role of government. "This could really
screw a kid's life up if they get flagged and it comes back to haunt
them in 20 years."