SUMMIT ON DRUG TESTING IS TODAY

School issue to be weighed at Fresno session, 1 of 4 like it being held
across the U.S.

WASHINGTON -- The drug-testing debate striking the San Joaquin Valley this
week has provoked conflicting responses in classrooms and courtrooms alike.

By convening a Fresno summit today, one of four like it being held
nationwide, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy hopes to
open a dialogue about school drug testing.

It's a conversation for which the White House, at least, has already formed
a conclusion.

"They have a deterrent effect," Brian Blake, a spokesman for the White House
drug office, said of random drug tests, "and they help identify kids who may
have a drug problem in the early stages so they can get treatment."

Some agree, some do not, and most are still finding their way. In Oklahoma's
panhandle, the town of Guymon formerly tested students. Eventually, some
students began quitting the after-school activities, said Guymon's assistant
superintendent, Douglas Melton, and the district stopped the testing over
questions about its cost-effectiveness. "It's very expensive," Melton said,
citing an $18,000 cost in a district with one high school and one junior
high school. "So instead of spending the money on testing, we hired a
resource officer instead."

But because a new federal grant will pay for the local resource officer,
Melton added, the Guymon schools anticipate resuming testing within weeks.
Symbolically, Guymon's experience cuts in several directions.

The district's original decision to quit testing was highlighted by the Drug
Policy Alliance, an organization that opposes random drug testing. The
Guymon district's decision to renew testing, thanks to a temporary federal
grant, is thus a public relations blow to the alliance, which says studies
fail to show any benefit to drug testing.

A University of Michigan study of 76,000 students nationwide between 1998
and 2001 concluded that testing appeared futile as a deterrent. For
instance, 37% of high school seniors had tried marijuana in schools with
drug testing; in schools without drug testing, 36% had tried marijuana.

"Randomly testing kids is incredibly ineffective," said Ethan Nadelmann,
director of the Drug Policy Alliance. Blake replied that the design of the
University of Michigan study did not provide for an accurate assessment of
the kind of random testing that schools engage in. No solid figures are
available for how many schools currently test, though the Drug Policy
Alliance puts the estimate at roughly 5% of the nation's schools.

Fresno Mayor Alan Autry has urged local school districts to start the random
urine checks that can cost between $15 and $40 per test. Bret Harte High
School in Angels Camp began randomly testing student-athletes last year,
over some local objections. Few others do in the state, though Modesto City
Schools will send a representative to the Fresno drug-testing summit to
learn more.

"We're in a wait-and-see mode," said Jim Pfaff, associate superintendent of
the 34,000- student Modesto district. "We'd like to see what are the
benefits, and what are the pitfalls."

Legal challenges, too, continue despite a 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court
in 2002 that upheld testing of students engaged in extracurricular
activities.

The court's majority termed random drug testing "a reasonably effective
means of addressing the school district's legitimate concerns" in preventing
drug use. Nevertheless, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court last November ruled
unanimously that a National Honor Society member could still use the state's
constitutional guarantee of privacy to challenge the Delaware Valley School
District's drug-testing policy.

"Many students could reasonably consider production of a urine sample for
testing to involve a greater imposition than the ordinary use of a public
restroom," the Pennsylvania Supreme Court noted. The justices added that
testing students active in extracurricular activities apparently served
strictly "symbolic purposes; their privacy rights [were] deemed forfeit so
as to set an example for other students."

But in Florida's Polk County, officials are about to resume drug testing
with the help of a $236,080 federal grant. Between 1996 and 2000, student
athletes were randomly tested for drugs at a district high school, according
to Ed Boos, the district's health supervisor. Boos said the testing ceased
because money ran out.

Now, relying on the three-year federal grant, the Polk County district will
eventually start testing about 4,800 student athletes. Boos said student
surveys from the prior testing showed drug use fell during the testing
period and rose once random testing ended. "We felt like drug testing was a
good prevention program," Boos said.

The Polk County grant is one of eight this year offered under a $2 million
Education Department grant program designed to encourage drug testing. The
Bush administration proposes increasing this grant program to $25 million
next year.