ANTI-DRUG TESTING BILL THREATENS STUDENTS

If state legislators wrote a bill outlawing a critical remedy to help kids
avoid a disease like tuberculosis, there would probably be a major effort
to boot every single one of them out of office. Recently, the state Senate
did something just as asinine -- except the condition in question was drug
use by kids, far more prevalent than TB. Bowing to pro-drug interest
groups, a bill is making its way to the governor's desk that would stymie
efforts by local schools to test students for drugs.

Unlike lawmakers in other states, Sacramento bureaucrats would like to
control the way schools drug-test students, making such testing voluntary
and placing restrictions on how it is administered.

Drug testing sounds costly, unnecessary, uncompassionate, even
unconstitutional. Those who want to legalize and legitimize drug use
caricature drug testing as a draconian policy designed to catch kids using
drugs and throw them into jail.

It's time to set the record straight.

At a time when drug abuse in California plagues many students, it makes
sense to drug-test students as a part a comprehensive drug-prevention
program (which includes after-school programs). Since addiction is spread
from peer to peer, drug testing gives a student another more credible
reason to say "no" when offered drugs by his or her friend.

Unfortunately, the sponsors of Senate Bill 1386 miss the point of random
drug testing when they assume that the practice is unnecessary because it
is already easy to detect drug use: "You come into class, your eyes are
red, you're falling asleep, and yesterday you weren't like that," argues
Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg, D-Los Angeles, who coauthored the bill with
Sen. John Vasconcellos, D-Santa Clara.

But drug testing is not meant to catch the kid who "everyone knows" is
using drugs.

The purpose of testing is to get those kids who have yet to show symptoms
of their drug use the help they need before their "recreational fun" turns
into dependence or addiction.

It's meant to prevent the scenario described above so that the student and
his or her peers don't have to live with the consequences of their
classmate coming to school on drugs.

Drug testing is also not intended to detect drug use for punitive purposes
- -- in fact, the U.S. Supreme Court prohibited that in its recent landmark
ruling defending random drug tests for kids involved in activities at school.

No student goes to jail as a result of a positive drug test. Instead, the
family's privacy is respected and the child is referred to get help to stop
his or her use. Consequences entail being denied involvement in sports or
other extra curricular activities during the treatment period and until the
child tests negative for drugs.

Employing this carrot-and-stick method works. For example: After two years
of a drug testing program, Hunterdon Central High School in New Jersey saw
significant reductions in 20 of 28 drug use categories, including a drop in
cocaine use by seniors from 13 percent to 4 percent.

The U.S. military saw drug-use rates drop from 27 percent in 1981 to 3
percent today, thanks to the introduction of random drug testing.

Schools like St. Patrick's High in Chicago are seeing a total change in the
culture of education at their school as a result of drug testing.

Compared to other health interventions, drug testing is cheap.

It costs roughly $10 to $50 per student, per year. Most parents would
gladly pay that small fee in exchange for knowing that their child was
safe. In addition, the federal government has proposed $25 million to help
school districts offset the costs.

Unfortunately, opponents of random drug tests (many of whom carry mission
staements dedicated to legalizing drugs) can claim some victories in our state.

Already, schools such as Bret Harte Union High School in Angels Camp
(Calaveras County) have said that they will pull their effective drug
testing program if SB1386 passes.

Principals, teachers and parents who employ an effective drug-testing
program at school realize it is a valuable tool to deter kids from delving
into drug use in the first place and to refer troubled teens to help. Our
elected officials should not make that tool harder to use with this
misguided legislation.