WAKE DELAYS DRUG-TESTING PROGRAM

A program to test Wake County students for illegal drugs is on hold until
the fall. Corey Duber, Wake's senior director for security, said he won't
recommend that the district begin using the aerosol drug-detection kits
until at least the 2003-04 school year. The program still needs school board
approval.

Wake would be the first school district in the Triangle to test students
suspected of using illegal drugs. The tests would be given primarily to
students whom school officials have reasonable suspicion of possessing
marijuana.

Wake administrators had agreed, before getting board approval, that this
school year they would begin a federally funded pilot program involving
school districts in Mississippi, New Jersey and Virginia to test an aerosol
method of detecting drugs. The Mistral Group, a Maryland-based company, is
providing free kits to schools.

With the kits, litmus paper is rubbed on surfaces such as book bags or
hands, then a spray is applied to the paper. If even microscopic amounts of
drugs are present, the paper changes color in seconds.

Similar kits are used by the former U.S. Customs Service, now part of the
Homeland Security Department.

After local media publicized the program, school board members complained
that they had not been told about it. Some groups, such as the American
Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina, have raised concerns about the
constitutionality of the procedure.

Under the proposed procedures, there would be no random testing.

Tests would be conducted only when there is "reasonable suspicion" that a
student is under the influence of an illegal drug, in possession of an
illegal substance or maintaining an illegal substance in a locker or
vehicle. In contrast, police have the higher standard of demonstrating
probable cause before they can search.