BEWARE OF ILL-CONCEIVED DRUG TESTING

While we join Senate President Robert Bunda in our concern over substance
abuse problems afflicting Hawai'i youth, we're inclined to join the chorus
of skeptics who question his proposal to implement random drug testing at
schools.

Bunda has called for random drug tests for all students, using hair samples
that can detect drug residues within three months of substance use.

But before Hawai'i buys into this campaign, ask yourself this: Do these drug
testing programs make sense as an educational policy? School officials,
after all, are hired to run a school, not to become experts on drug
detection.

Moreover, does drug testing breach the trust basis of education? There's
that risk that it could scare children away from school.

Bunda asks that we debate the issue, and we couldn't agree more. Because if
this random drug testing program isn't thought through very carefully, it
could overburden an already-strapped school system and create an atmosphere
of paranoia on campus.

Let us first clarify that we have no objection to mandatory drug testing for
school athletes. In that case, the health and safety needs in athletics
clearly outweigh the privacy issue.

However, random drug testing of all students is a much thornier
constitutional issue. First, it must comply with the Fourth Amendment, which
prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures by state officers.

If this idea moves forward, those who test positive for drug use should be
dealt with through counseling rather than punishment. That is the model in
other jurisdictions. But that begs the question of whether we have the
facilities to accommodate a possible avalanche of drug treatment needs.

And if parental consent is required -- and we believe it is -- then at least
some of those who really need to be tested may not receive the consent
because their parents may be drug users who don't want any trouble.

Perhaps it would be simpler and more cost-effective for parents themselves
to test their children for drug use at home.

John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control
Policy, stresses that random drug testing is a very powerful tool not to be
handled lightly.

"You need to have local community work through the issue, talking to parents
and kids and people who do drug treatment," he told The New York Times.

Sounds like good advice for Hawai'i as we grapple over how to police drug
use in the schools.