SCHOOLS FAIL DRUGS TEST

I am opposed to schools testing their students for drugs under any
circumstances. Of course, I acknowledge that those who advocate
testing as an alternative to expulsion do so in an honest attempt to
face up to a major problem in our schools. But drug testing breaks
down the relationship of trust in the dialogue between teachers,
parents and students.

Counselling can never be effective if it is coerced. If a urine sample
were to be used as justification for bringing to an end the contract
of enrolment, legally it would have to be obtained under supervisory
conditions, which are utterly repulsive to most administrators and
teachers and humiliating for the student. I do not believe, even were
drug testing of students desirable, that it could be practical. In a
"them and us" atmosphere it presents an interesting challenge to
adolescent ingenuity.

Drug use among students has to be dealt with on an individual basis. A
school should expel a student only when the school is convinced that
it can no longer do anything further to help that boy or girl, and
that his or her continuing at the school is not in the school's or the
student's best interest. As a headmaster I always welcomed students
who had been expelled for drug use from other schools, because I
believed they needed another chance. Despite what is frequently said,
this is not the case in most independent schools, and I constantly
came up against refusals to take students asked to leave St Michael's.

There is certainly a desire among many independent schools to avoid
anything that might suggest that they have a "drug problem". Schools
have to cope with the extraordinary naivete of many parents in regard
to this matter, and a school's "reputation" as a "drug school" makes a
topic for good dinner-party conversation.

The fact is that drugs are present in all school communities, but not
necessarily to a great extent at school itself. Most drug use occurs
outside school, often at Saturday night parties. It is distressing
that so many schools limit their concern to the presence of drugs on
campus. The students are the same people whether they are at school or
outside school. We make a mockery of the problem if we, as schools,
limit our involvement to students' activities directly connected with
the school.

In broad terms there are three groups of student drug users. The first
are the so-called "experimenters". The second use drugs socially,
usually at parties, from time to time; some quite frequently, many
rarely. Disciplinary measure are appropriate to each of these groups,
because they demonstrate clearly the school's, and hopefully the wider
community's, disapproval of this kind of behavior. Discipline must
always be accompanied by counselling and education.

The third, a small but significant number in our schools are those who
are drug dependent, whose lives have become dominated by a drug
culture and who frequently use drugs daily, sometimes many times a
day. Those foolish people who believe marijuana is never addictive
need to be introduced to this group at their local secondary school.
They will probably recognise them by their appearance. They are being
physically, socially and fundamentally destroyed by their habit.

As as group they are becoming distressingly younger, but most are 16
or over. No threat of drug testing or expulsion is going to influence
them, except sometimes in the very short term. More often than not
their problems are not confined to drug use, and their drug use is a
symptom as well as a cause. Their care is a major problem, and schools
cannot walk away from responsibility for them. Of course, families
have the primary responsibility, but most families in these
circumstances cannot cope, and in many cases the families themselves
are a major part of the problem. A disciplinary approach for them is
entirely inappropriate and completely ineffective.

The issue of drugs needs to be talked about at an individual and group
level constantly in schools. In no other area is there such a divide
between adults in schools and students. Students who are not addicted
take drugs because they find them "enjoyable". It is difficult to
convince experimenters and social users of the dangers, when they
enjoy the effect of the drugs they take, when in the majority of cases
no obvious harm follows for them, and when many parents use licit and
illicit drugs.

But the really scary fact is that drug testing adolescents in 2000 is
merely closing the door after the horse has bolted. Marijuana is
easily detected in urine, which is not the case with most other drugs.
The fact is that marijuana is no longer the main problem. In the past
two years there has been an alarming increase in the use of heroin,
cocaine and ecstasy among secondary school students, and most schools
are unaware of this or are determined not to recognise it. Where there
is the threat of drug testing, it makes sense to use drugs that cannot
be identified by testing - and so drug testing can only accelerate a
highly disturbing move towards other drugs.

As a community we go in for knee-jerk reactions. We need to start
facing the drug problem among the young seriously, and recognise that
it is a problem for the whole community, not just schools. In schools
we need more honest dialogue with students, and we need to look at
each drug offender as an individual with individual problems. We need
to recognise that the problems of young people are interlocked. Drug
use does not stand alone. It is linked with other problems, including
depression, suicide, family disruption and the corruption of social
and personal values.

Time is running out.