DRUG TESTS FACE CHALLENGE

American Civil Liberties Union attorneys plan to appeal an Oklahoma City
federal judge's ruling that public schools can force students to take drug
tests to participate in extracurricular activities, an ACLU lawyer said
Friday.

Graham Boyd of the ACLU's Drug Policy Litigation Project responded Friday
to U.S. District Judge David L. Russell's ruling. That ruling came Thursday
in a case in which two high school students sued the Tecumseh School Board,
alleging the district's drug testing policy violated their constitutional
right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.

Boyd urged Oklahoma schools not to take Russell's ruling as a "green light"
to adopt whatever type of drug testing policy they like.

"The issue is still very much in contention and will have to be resolved by
higher courts - probably the U.S. Supreme Court," he said.

Boyd said only a "rather small minority" of schools test non-athletes for
drugs across the country, but said such drug testing is more common in
Oklahoma.

"It's very expensive and there's very little evidence it cuts drug use," he
said.