SHOULD STUDENTS BE RANDOMLY TESTED FOR DRUGS?

YES: It Reverses the Spread of Addiction

Today in Atlanta, concerned parents will meet with regional school
officials, drug prevention specialists and student assistance
professionals to discuss the promise of a powerful new tool to fight
drug use among America's youth.

Building on the 11 percent decline in teen drug use America has
witnessed in the past two years, random student drug testing --
locally controlled, nonpunitive and designed to get help for those in
trouble -- can help consolidate and further our progress.

Addiction is a pediatric-onset disease that needs a public health
response. In much the same way that school tuberculosis tests identify
children who are sick and can spread a dangerous disease, student drug
testing helps identify kids who have a problem with drugs and prevents
the spread of the disease of addiction.

Each child prevented from using drugs means there is one fewer child
able to pass the disease of addiction to his or her peers, and we know
that if we can prevent children from using drugs in their teen years,
they are much less likely to go on and use drugs later in life.

In the past decade, the nation's acceptance of student drug testing
has increased, hastened by the U.S. Supreme Court's 2002 ruling that
drug testing students in extracurricular activities is
constitutionally protected.

President Bush highlighted this policy as an effective prevention and
intervention instrument during his State of the Union speech in
January, and backed up his position with a call for increased federal
funds for schools that would like to start these programs. This
momentum in favor of student drug testing is based on the demonstrated
effectiveness of random testing programs to deter use, and a more
educated public understanding that student drug test results can only
be used confidentially to help students, not to punish them.

Random drug testing of students in extracurricular activities is
effective because it demonstrates that a community has set a serious
standard for its youth. In addition to creating a culture of
disapproval toward drugs, student drug testing also achieves three
public health goals:

It deters children from initiating drug use;

It identifies children who have just started using drugs so that
parents and counselors can intervene early;

It helps identify children who have a dependency on drugs so that they
can be referred to effective drug treatment.

According to a study in the Journal of Adolescent Health, a school in
Oregon that randomly drug tested student athletes had a rate of drug
use that was one-quarter that of a comparable school with no drug
testing policy.

After two years of a drug testing program, Hunterdon Central Regional
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.

Fortune 500 companies, small businesses, and regulated transportation
industries have extensive experience in using this public health
diagnostic tool. Every American who steps on an airplane or sends a
child out to the school bus rests easier knowing that pilots and bus
drivers are drug tested. Drug testing saves lives and we can no longer
withhold the proven benefits of drug testing from the members of
society that are most vulnerable to drugs' destructive influence.