TOLEDO HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS REFUSE TO TAKE DRUG SURVEY

With Lincoln County School District high schools beginning to give
surveys related to the SATURN: Student Athlete Testing Using Random
Notification last week, many students and parents have taken a stand
against the research project.

Claiming the Oregon Health Sciences University study, funded by a
grant from the National Institutes of Health, is invasive to an
individual's right to privacy, a majority of Toledo High School's
student body refused to take part in filling out the questionnaire
given to the school by SATURN team members last week.

"For the most part, pretty much no one took it," Toledo sophomore Beth
Roeser said Thursday. She added that students wore blue ribbons
pinned to their shirts in a sign of protest to the research study.

Toledo and Taft High Schools' athletes have chosen to take part in the
random drug testing of athletes, part of the test group for the SATURN
study. Students wishing to participate in athletics in either of
those schools must sign a waiver of intent to take part in the random
drug tests. Waldport, Eddyville and Newport High Schools are part of
the study's control group and will be given just the drug survey, but
will not be urine tested.

"Most of us feel that it was a decision that should have been made by
the community," said Roeser about the LCSD decision to take part in
the study. She said the students expressed a good deal of confusion
about the ramifications of the testing process and how the waiver forms read.

Surveys were given to athletes and non-athletes, but athletes were to
sign their forms, which had an increased number of questions than the
others. Roeser said the majority of questions related to whether the
respondent had taken alcohol or drugs within the last year, and if so,
how often.