WAGE WAR ON TEENAGE DRUG ABUSE

The loss of random drug testing for prep athletes and others is a
setback, but schools still need a vigorous strategy to battle the problem.

When Bob Knight coached at Indiana University, he was invited to be a
guest speaker at one of the state's high schools.

He talked a little about basketball, but mostly he talked about the
problems young people face. Then he took questions.

One student stood up and asked Knight where he stood on random drug
testing.

"If it were up to me, I'd have every one of you (favorite Knight
expletive) tested," he said.

When it came to drugs and underage use of alcohol, Knight didn't have
much use for politics or the American Civil Liberties Union or
right-to-privacy lawsuits. Knight might have been a tyrant, an
insufferable boor and a profane bully, but he hated drugs more than he
hated losing to Purdue. Give him credit.

We bring this up because of the unfortunate suspension of random drug
testing for athletes and others who participate in extracurricular
activities at Lake Stevens High School.

The school board voted unanimously to end the program following a
Washington State Supreme Court ruling that such practice is
unconstitutional.

Instead, the high school intends to offer drug testing to students who
volunteer to be tested and whose parents agree.

Lake Stevens High School was one of a few in the state that had a
random drug testing program. Since 2006, 10 of the 500 students who
submitted urine specimens tested positive for drugs. They still
attended classes after the positive tests, but were suspended 23 days
from extracurricular activities, were required to take a personal drug
assessment and enroll in a treatment program if recommended.

Knight would approve. I don't often agree with him, but I do
here.

Even if it did abolish the random nature of drug testing, the court
still allows school districts the opportunity to take an active, if
reduced, role in the fight against drugs and alcohol by permitting
testing of those who volunteer.

Sure, you say. It'll be about as effective as if schools offer bonus
advanced trigonometry exams to those who volunteer.

Yet, if school officials and parents work it right, the volunteer
programs still could have some teeth.

They could get coaches of school sports teams and advisers of other
extracurricular activities to vigorously recommend their participants
volunteer to be tested. While it falls short of testing as a
prerequisite to participation, perhaps schools can make a dent in the
problem when coupled with frank, rigorous drug and alcohol education,
especially if parents approve it, support it and campaign for it.

How serious is the problem? According to the Bureau of Justice:

- - Of high school seniors in 2005, 44.8 reported having used hashish or
marijuana;

- - 8 percent reported having used cocaine;

- - 1.5 percent reported having used heroin.

Between 1992 and 2005, past-month users of marijuana increased
from:

- - 12 percent to 20 percent among high school seniors;

- - 8 percent to 15 percent among 10th graders;

- - 4 percent to 7 percent among eighth graders.

In 2006, high school seniors said they could obtain the following
drugs fairly easily or very easily:

- - Marijuana, 84.9 percent.

- - Amphetamines, 52.9 percent.

- - Cocaine, 46.5 percent.

- - Barbiturates 43.8 percent.

- - Crack, 38.8 percent.

- - LSD 29 percent.

- - Heroin, 27.4 percent.

- - Crystal methamphetamine, 26.7.

I understand the importance of personal privacy. I sympathize with
much of what the ACLU stands for. I also have a daughter going into
high school in September and I want to know that her school provides
every possible safeguard against the use of controlled substances,
regardless of her sense of privacy.

Lake Stevens had it right. We hope the recent setback brought by the
Washington State Supreme Court will deter neither school officials nor
parents to push on in their attempts to fight teen drug and alcohol
abuse.