PUNISHING OUR CHILDREN A SHORT-SIGHTED SOLUTION

Drug Testing At Schools Is Not The Way To Educate The Next Generation,
Writes Terry Metherell.

Random drug testing of high school students (Herald, March 30) should
be resisted, whether it is proposed by school leaders or pressed on
schools by anxious parents or governments.

In the United States, random school drug testing is often justified as
a deterrent. It is claimed that the perceived risk of getting caught
stops students ever using drugs. No evidence exists that marijuana and
other illicit drug use by students is any lower in schools with random
drug testing than in schools without.

Indeed, there is no evidence of any effect from school random drug
testing, either in changing drug attitudes or drug use behaviour.

What is clear is that some high school students will be caught by
random drug testing and severely punished, probably by expulsion.
Confidentiality cannot be and is not preserved in these circumstances,
as several recent drug controversies in Melbourne and Sydney private
schools demonstrate.

The majority of student drug users, most of whom smoke marijuana
experimentally or occasionally, will not be caught or disciplined.
Drug use by students will continue to increase. There will then be
calls from some quarters for mandatory drug testing, or mandatory
expulsion of all student users.

Yet about three in four senior high school students have used an
illegal drug at least once - usually marijuana or dance drugs. One in
five uses marijuana weekly. However much we oppose drug use by
students in or out of school, it is unjust to expel a few when many
offend. The school penalties are often much more severe than any court
would impose for a similar offence.

In Australia, there is no significant community call for school drug
testing. One American Web site records that nearly two thirds (65.6
per cent) of those polled oppose random school drug testing, and less
than one quarter (23.3 per cent) support random drug testing of all
students.

Community opposition in Australia is based on three fundamental
concerns, I believe: that school drug testing (especially testing
without cause) is a violation of students' civil liberties; the
involvement of teachers and schools in drug testing destroys student
trust, teacher morale and public confidence in schools as places
principally of teaching and learning; and that such severe penalties
as school expulsion for randomly selected students are fundamentally
unjust.

There is a better way. Good schools have pastoral care programs that
support and counsel students and their families, both for drug-related
and other problems. The Queensland Education Department recently
extended school-based "conferencing" where, in the wake of a serious
incident of harm, the offending student, school leaders, appropriate
teachers and other staff and the student's family are brought together
to agree on strategies to address causes and avoid repeat offences.
Strategies may include counselling and treatment where required.
Police may be involved where the offence warrants it or school
policies require it.

The outcomes include high satisfaction with the process among all
participants; high compliance rates with the terms of the agreement by
offenders; low rates of reoffending; and improved school
relationships. This conferencing and counselling approach holds
promise. School drug testing promises injustice, disruption and
defiance. Beware the school marketers who pretend school drug tests
equal drug-free schools.

There is a danger, too, that school drug testing will encourage the
myth that schools alone have the answers to rising illegal drug use
among students or primary responsibility to deal with it. Important
though it is, effective school-based drug education forms only a part
of a multi-pronged approach including parent communication with and
supervision of their children; media campaigns; local action by
community partnerships; policing to reduce availability and increase
street prices; court sentencing options, and so on.

Consider our society before we scapegoat a few visible young
offenders. We do too little to protect or assist our high risk
children, known often to teachers and other professionals in primary
school or even earlier. At the other end, an average teenager between
12 and 17 years old has about $50 a week to spend, with much less
family supervision and much more targeted marketing than ever before.

For these abused and neglected children, from wealthy or poor
dysfunctional families, an increasing variety of legal and illegal
drugs are widely available and affordable. They offer "time out" from
pain, stress and emotional emptiness. Or they are seen simply as
"fun", another way to enjoy life, to "hang" with friends, another
product in the hypermarket: now.com.

Let's change our values before we punish our children.