RANDOM SCHOOL DRUG TESTS MAY CURB ABUSE, BUT AT WHAT COST?

This has been a tough one to call, in some regards. The aunt, friend
and scaredy-cat bones in me have been spatting with the freedom-loving ones.

The argument started a few years ago when school systems around
southwest Missouri began adopting random drug-testing policies for
students, and it flared up again when the Branson district recently
announced it was following suit. All kids in grades 7-12 who want to
participate in some extracurricular activities, or park in the
school lot, will be subject.

Part of me wants to speak as someone who taught kids in these grades
and as one whose teenage family member almost killed herself -- just
15 minutes before school started -- by drinking Everclear and taking
drugs with pals.

That part of me wants to speak as someone who, in her teens,
sometimes used all the good judgment of a dog going after an
unwatched steak. We didn't do drugs in high school, but I could
probably have killed myself at 17, when two of my friends and I went
out with our first bottle of Jack Daniels on New Year's Eve. I was
in the middle of the truck seat, so when the bottle was passed, I
got double the amount. The driver, of course, could have killed people.

You want kids to be safe. And even though Branson's random testing
doesn't screen for steroids or alcohol, it will find marijuana,
cocaine, amphetamine and opiates. As astonishingly easy as it is for
kids to get these drugs, this kind of random testing may deter them
from trying.

(I say "may" with not that much confidence. My experience is that
with a kid determined to do something, the only thing that will stop
him is duct-taping him to a kitchen chair and standing watch.)

The other side is the George Schultz part of me that wants to say
just what he did when former President Ronald Reagan decided to
require all federal employees to take drug tests. Schultz just said
no. No peeing in a cup for him. He hadn't given anyone any reason to
suspect him of drug use. The former secretary of state realized that
we have a constitutional right, guaranteed us by our Fourth
Amendment, against unwarranted search and seizure, and this means
even our bodily fluids:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses,
papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,
shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon
probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and
particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons
or things to be seized."

Forcing kids to take random drug tests is the hump of the camel
under the tent: the nose is already there for many employees. And
why kids? Don't they have any Fourth Amendment rights? If you think
there's an exclusion for them, refresh your high school civics
and read Amendment IV.

Who is it next? Elderly drivers, because their medication might make
them drowsy? Ditto allergy sufferers?

Most of the Branson kids our reporter questioned about the new
policy didn't object to it. If the school -- and its neighbors in
Hollister, Ava, Logan-Rogersville, Reeds Spring, Billings, Bolivar,
Bradleyville, Marshfield, Sparta and others -- is so keen on making
policies, here's one I wish they'd make:

While handing out urine cups (at $20,000 a year), require a civics
review course to remind students of the invasions of privacy the
British put up with, leading them to come here and start this nation.