TAXES MAY FUND PEQUANNOCK DRUG TESTS

PEQUANNOCK -- Local residents may have to cover the costs next fall
for the school district's model drug and alcohol testing program.

The district is in its final year of a three-year grant from the U.S.
Department of Education that provided $40,000 annually for the program.

The Board of Education would have to approve paying the program costs
until additional grant money could be found. Board President Megan
Hollberg said she is "pretty confident" it would have support.

"I think we have had good results with it and it seems to do what we
want to do: deter kids from drinking and doing drugs," she said.

The grant pays for a program director and another person to
administer the tests. The money also covers the testing kits and
mailing. Some of the tests are shipped to a lab for reading.

The district started testing students for drugs and alcohol in the
2005-06 school year. Students who participate in sports or
extracurricular activities or drive to school are subject to the
random program. Pequannock was also the first district in the state
to test middle school students for drug use.

In February, the district added a more stringent alcohol test to its
program. The test can detect on a Monday whether a teenager had taken
a drink over the weekend. The urine screening is for ethyl
glucuronide (EtG), a residue of metabolized alcohol. From the start
of the program, the district also used a urine test to detect drug
use -- and still does.

About 20 students picked randomly at Pequannock High School were
tested last year with the EtG test. None had alcohol in their
systems, program director John Graf said. This year, the district has
tested 100 students, including some from the middle school. Some
have tested positive, but Graf declined to say how many.

Before adopting the EtG test last year, the district used a saliva
swab test to detect alcohol use. The test could determine only
whether a student had been drinking within a few hours. The EtG test
can detect alcohol use within the last 80 hours.

"More kids use alcohol than any other drug, but we had the least
effective tool," Graf said. "You are not doing a lot to deter kids
if you are using a tool that doesn't reach back and cover the time
period when they were most likely to use."

The EtG test was controversial because readings also can result from
use of products containing ethanol, including hand sanitizers and
mouthwash. But the district calibrated the test at a higher level so
it would not detect such exposure, said Pequannock Valley Middle
School Principal William Trusheim, who helped develop the program.

Pequannock is one of two districts in the state that use the test.
Middletown in Monmouth County also adopted the test last year.

It appears the tests have had an impact on drug and alcohol use in
Pequannock. Juniors and seniors reported a 52 percent decline in high
drug and alcohol use during the second year of the drug-testing
program. The district plans to conduct another survey this month.

"These numbers are going in the right direction," Trusheim said. "We
want students to make a commitment not to use."