TEXAS PARENTS CONTEST SCHOOL DRUG TESTS

The controversial question of drug testing in schools is under attack
in America, where such tests have been mandatory in many states for
years.

A group of parents in Lockney, northern Texas, has launched a
challenge to the local high school's rigorous testing program, on the
basis that it violates the students' rights under the Fourth Amendment
to US Constitution. The amendment, passed in 1789, protects citizens
against "unreasonable searches and seizures".

Paradoxically, it was pressure from the same group of parents that led
to the school instituting what is considered the strictest
drug-testing regime in the US. That pressure resulted from persistent
complaints about students smoking marijuana and using other drugs at
the school.

The issue of drug testing came to a head last week when the school
suspended 12-year-old Brady Tannahill for refusing to take the test.

The school policy says that anyone who does not comply with the test
procedure will receive the same punishment as those who fail the test.

The boy's father, Larry Tannahill, was among 400 parents who had
forbidden their children from taking the tests.

"One of my arguments has been that if you think you've got a problem
with one of the boys, call me and I'll take care of it," Mr Tannahill
told his local newspaper: "The good Lord gave them to us, not the
school district."

The case has been picked up by the American Civil Liberties Union,
which has taken it to the Federal Court and transformed the dusty
ranch territory of Lockney into an unlikely constitutional
battleground.

The suit says that Brady Tannahill had not used drugs and claims the
school had no reason to believe he had. The school, therefore, had no
right to demand he be tested.

Drug-testing in schools is now commonplace across the US, where
students have to pass through metal detectors before entering
corridors and routine searches for weapons are carried out on their
bags and lockers.

The only definitive legal ruling on the issue comes from a drugs in
sport ruling in the Supreme Court, the US equivalent of the Australian
High Court.

In 1995 the Supreme Court ruled that schools had the right to demand
urine tests from students trying out for sports teams. That ruling has
been used to underpin individual school decisions to expand the urine
tests to all students.

Mr Eric Sterling, the president of the Criminal Justice Police
Foundation in Washington, told the New York Times that the Lockney
case could inspire a rash of challenges nationwide.

He said the "presumption of guilt" created by the policy flew in the
face of the Pledge of Allegiance the students recited at school every
morning. "Their sense of liberty and what liberty means will be
offended every time they're asked to provide a urine specimen without
any cause that they're using drugs," he said.