RANDOM STUDENT DRUG TESTING INEFFECTIVE, INVASION OF PRIVACY

As a senior at Allentown High School, I served as vice president of
Life-Savers, a club dedicated to preventing student substance abuse.
This year our Board of Education proposed a policy that would require
students who wish to participate in extracurricular activities to
submit to random urinalysis tests for illicit drug use. While I
understand the desire to do more, I believe the policy will do more
harm than good. My fellow students and I are organizing against this
policy, which is ineffective, discounts student input, invades privacy
and erodes trust.

In response to the proposal, I joined with my peers to form a group,
Students Morally Against Random Testing (SMART), to mobilize
opposition to student drug testing. Composed of more than 250
students, parents and alumni, we are an active voice at board
meetings. We have asked the board to reject the drug testing proposal
and submitted a petition with at least 450 signatures from high school
students.

We presented the board with scientific research that found drug
testing to be ineffective in reducing student drug use. A pair of
University of Michigan studies, conducted in 2003, compared students
in schools with and without a drug testing program and found virtually
no difference in illegal drug use. Additionally, the American Academy
of Pediatrics points to research indicating that student drug testing
programs actually may lead adolescents to engage in more risky
behaviors, such as Friday-night binge drinking, which will not show up
on a drug test Monday morning.

The program can be counterproductive, as students who test positive
are suspended from extracurricular activities, giving them more
unsupervised time during the peak hours of student drug use. It might
also prompt students to move to inhalants such as Freon or household
cleaners, which are equally dangerous and will not show up on the screening.

The board should take seriously the privacy concerns of students.
While the administration makes promises about confidentiality,
students who are suspended from activities would be the target of
rumors and gossip, a pervasive force at our school. To protect against
false positives, the school requires parents and students to disclose
prescriptions and medical information, raising anxiety about this
information getting out. Privacy issues are not something to be
dismissed lightly.

Fear is a final byproduct of the policy. Proponents label this a
"deterrent," but in actuality it breaks down trust between
administrators and students. The board seems ready for a program that
embraces a mentality of "guilty until proven innocent," with every
student a suspect. Creating an environment of trust, where students
feel connected to school, is the most effective way to keep students
out of trouble with drug use.

Chris Steffner, principal of Hackettstown High School, gave a
presentation in favor of testing at a recent board meeting. This is
the same woman who said, "Fear in the mind of a teenager is a
wonderful thing." Not only is this statement blatantly offensive to
any teenager, but it is seriously misguided. No student deserves to
live in fear. Growing up afraid is not conducive to education.

Students across New Jersey will continue to fight against wasteful and
ineffective random student drug testing. The Upper Freehold Regional
school board is scheduled to vote on the policy on June 18. New Jersey
educators should listen to the science, the experts and their students
and "just say no" to random drug testing.