RANDOM TESTING FOR DRUGS: IS IT ALL RIGHT, OR A THREAT TO OUR RIGHTS?

When Marshfield School Board President Jo Walker says she's trying to study
and do the best she can for students, I'm convinced. She's read studies of
random drug testing in Michigan and Indiana, listened to the comments of
parents and students in the Marshfield school district for months and sat in
on five board meetings where random drug testing was discussed.

"We started looking at this in February, and I had only one phone call
against it prior to this approval. Students I talked to said it gave them a
good reason to say no. There's enormous peer pressure."

Walker was impressed by the Indiana study: In 1999 and 2000, Indiana public
schools instituted random drug testing, then suspended it from 2000 to 2001,
and 85 percent of principals then reported an increase in drug use among
students.

Walker supports the board's decision to institute random drug testing for
all Marshfield junior-high and high-school students involved in
extracurricular activities, but when citizens discuss it Monday night, she
says she'll "be listening."

One parent to whom the board will be listening is Don Sparks, retired roofer
and father, vehemently opposed to the policy. Walker says she believes the
school system is on the right track because in 2002, the Supreme Court ruled
that schools may allow random drug testing for students in extracurricular
activities.

Sparks wonders why the ruling doesn't fly in the face of our guarantee
against unwarranted search and seizure. His daughter, Adriane, was accepted
into the Model United Nations Club last year - one of two in the seventh
grade in Marshfield. She's also in the band and honors choir.

"Now she's not going to be in (Model UN), because I won't sign this. But I
believe our children need to learn our forefathers fought for our freedoms
and rights," Sparks says. "I told her that's why we fought the Revolutionary
War, for our freedom and rights, without being searched without probable
cause, that's what living in America means. That's why her stepbrother is
serving in the Army."

Sparks was disturbed by things he read on the consent form he wouldn't sign:
"This test may not be 100 percent accurate ..." and that upon consent,
students would be asked to complete a questionnaire. "I didn't know what
kind of questions they'd be. We are training our kids to submit."

I understand the school board members' concern to get drugs off their
campus. As a foster parent, I've felt the spiked tentacles of peer pressure.
But how many of our rights are we ready to give away, just in the name of an
easier way to combat crime, at any age?

When the Supreme Court ruled, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote, "We find that
testing students who participate in extracurricular activities is a
reasonable effective means of addressing the school district's legitimate
concerns in preventing, deterring and detecting drug use." In other words,
that concern outweighs students' rights to privacy.

And in that vein, if police could just search our homes, our barns, our
storage buildings, our cars, our purses, our file cabinets, our desks at
work, our briefcases, our beach bags, our laptops, with no probable cause to
suspect crime, who knows what they might just happen upon?