DRUG TESTS GAIN SOME ACCEPTANCE

The Cumberland County Board of Education could vote today to become
the first school system in the Cape Fear region to randomly test some
students for drug use.

But the practice is common in some smaller, more conservative school
districts of western North Carolina.

At least seven school districts in the Asheville area are either
testing students or have considered starting a program. Some of the
districts have been testing students for nearly a decade, almost as
long as the U.S. Supreme Court declared the practice legal. The court
ruled in 1995 that student athletes could be tested for drugs. In
2002, it expanded the testing pool to include students in competitive
extracurricular activities. All students are not allowed to be tested,
because they are required to attend school.

Some school systems were encouraging students to volunteer for drug
tests even before the Supreme Court's ruling.

Ricky McDevitt can't remember when he introduced drug testing to
Madison High School.

"It's been at least five or six years. It kind of eased its way in,"
said McDevitt, who has since quit his teaching job and is now the
manager for Madison County, a mountainous area on the Tennessee border.

Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools has been testing students since
1998 in one of the oldest and best-known programs in the country. It
also is the only other school system comparable in size to Cumberland
County that tests for drug.

Buncombe County Schools, located in Asheville, has been testing
students since 2004. The school system put the test in place after it
saw drug offenses rise year after year, said Stan Alleyne, the
director of communications for the school system.

The western part of the state has a culture that seems to favor
drug-testing, McDevitt said.

"Madison County is still rural, and it's one of those, I would say,
ultra-conservative," he said, explaining that no one from the
community spoke out against it.

Even Forsyth passed its drug policy with little opposition, said Doug
Punger, the school system's lawyer, who helped draft the policy.

"At the time of adoption, one or two people questioned or disagreed,"
he said. "But the support was overwhelming."

Still, some school systems have considered testing students - and
rejected it.

Polk County Board of Education members "talked themselves out of it,"
after worrying about the cost of drug tests, said Jim Patterson, the
personnel director for the school system, which sits on Interstate 26
along the South Carolina line. Drug tests can cost as much as $35 each.

Board members also worried about whether a drug testing program would
persuade students to stay out of sports.

"It's the kids who aren't in those activities who are probably using
drugs," Patterson said.

Surry County Schools also decided against testing its students in
2003, over concerns about students' privacy, said Assistant
Superintendent Billy Sawyers.

The effects of the drug tests are difficult to measure. Forsyth
Schools has seen "hills and valleys," over the eight years it has
tested students, Punger said. The school system measures drug use by
tracking the numbers who test positive, along with anonymous surveys,
and other studies.

The school system is testing more students as the cost drops. That has
helped curb the drug use.

Punger does not think drugs will ever be eradicated from the school
system, no matter how many students are tested.

"There's a problem with drugs in every school system in the country,"
he said. "It's a problem we don't think will ever go away."

Madison and Buncombe counties say they think the tests have
discouraged students from using drugs, because the secret of a
positive test could not be kept in such a small school system.

"You do not want to get caught," McDevitt said. "In a little old
school of 600 kids, God, that would resonate."

The North Carolina High School Athletic Association does not have a
formal position on mandatory drug testing. But the organization
encourages schools to educate students about the dangers of drugs,
said Assistant Executive Director Mark Dreibelbis.

Most tests only screen for conventional narcotics, Dreibelbis said. If
urine samples also are tested for performance-enhancing drugs, the
cost steeply climbs.

And there is no test that can determine whether a student drinks
alcohol, which high school students use far more frequently than any
illicit substance except tobacco. More than 70 percent of high school
seniors admitted using alcohol in the 12 months prior to taking a U.S.
Department of Justice survey. Only 34 percent of them admitted to
using marijuana.

The high school athletic association does not keep track of how many
school districts test for drugs, but the number appears to be growing.

Cumberland County is not the only school district reviving its drug
testing debate. The Surry County Board of Education, with a new
superintendent and new board members, is prepared to reconsider a drug
testing policy next month, Sawyers said.