A PUBLIC TESTING

Public debate ought to precede a public decision to make Wake the first
Triangle district to test students for illegal drugs.

Fear has caused more than one fish to flip from the frying pan into the
fire. And that could well be what the Wake County school system is about to
do with its planned testing for illegal drugs.

In light of a growing number of drug incidents in North Carolina schools,
it is understandable that school officials, and many parents, want action.
As The N&O's T. Keung Hui reported last week, Wake school administrators
have agreed to participate in a pilot program using litmus paper and a
chemical spray to detect marijuana on suspect students. Starting in
October, drug detection kits sold by the Mistral Group of Washington also
will be used on restroom counters and other surfaces to find residues of
cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines. Federal funds are paying for Wake to
give Mistral's products a trial run, along with school districts in
Minnesota, New Jersey and Virginia.

Before it becomes the first Triangle school district to take the
drug-testing plunge, Wake must give serious consideration to the potential
harm such a program could do. For an exploration like that, public hearings
would be smart. And the district's elected board must have the final word
on rules governing any drug testing, or indeed, on whether testing is
warranted in the first place.

Wake's foray into drug testing follows the U.S. Supreme Court's decision
this summer upholding school systems' right to require drug tests of
students who sign up for extracurricular activities. While the justices
left the door wide open to random testing, no school district is obliged to
walk through it.

The Mistral Group's tests may detect marijuana, but they say nothing about
its origin. It's not hard to imagine teenage scores being settled by
secretively smearing residue on somebody. Or residue could come from homes
where there are, unfortunately, pot-smoking parents. Traces of marijuana
can persist for weeks -- meaning, of course, there would be no way of
telling when or where a student might have indulged.

Holes that big in a drug-testing program ought to sharply limit the actions
taken as a result. Fortunately, Wake has ruled out using tests for criminal
prosecutions, but the system's senior security director, Corey Duber,
leaves open the disturbing possibility of suspending students for a
positive test. A more fitting response would be to call parents in for a
conference about the findings and offer the family some counseling.

But before treading on students' privacy at all, Wake needs to make a
convincing case that drug use has reached serious proportions. In Oregon,
high school students were so disturbed by drug use around them that they
called for random testing. In New Jersey, parents wanted to test their own
kids at home. Wake's school board needs to know how parents and kids here
see the drug problem. With eyes wide open, board members might want to find
another way off the griddle.