SCHOOL DRUG TESTING SOUNDS LIKE WITCH HUNT

It is time for the Hernando County School Board to refocus
superintendent Wendy Tellone's curious fixation on testing students
for drugs.

In the past two years Tellone and her staff have brought three
proposals to the board that would randomly select certain groups of
students to submit urine samples, which then are tested for a variety
of drugs, including alcohol. After initially opposing the
recommendation because it is fundamentally unfair and oppressive, the
board eventually authorized the administration to pursue a $418,000
federal grant that would pay for a drug counselor to oversee the program.

At first, Tellone wanted to test all high school and middle school
students who participated in any extracurricular activity or drove a
motor vehicle on campus. Now she has cast a slightly smaller net in
her exploitative fishing expedition: All high school students who
are athletes, cheerleaders or drive on campus.

This proposal is just as offensive and excessive as the earlier one,
and it is time for the board to intervene by clearly defining how it
wants to combat the problem of students who abuse drugs. The board
must undertake this task because it is apparent that Tellone and her
staff are determined to remain on a path of extremism that tramples
students' privacy and dignity.

The emphasis of any successful program should be on education and
prevention, and then getting help for those who need it. Any
available funding should be spent educating teachers how to recognize
the kids who are under the influence and referring them for testing,
counseling and discipline.

Singling out athletes, cheerleaders and people who drive cars is
arbitrary and overly broad. It makes about as much sense as targeting
members of the band or the drama club because of misplaced
generalizations that musicians and actors are more likely to use drugs.

More fundamentally, drug testing presupposes guilt and forces the
clear majority of students who are not abusing drugs to prove their
innocence.

Remarkably, Tellone's war on drugs extends beyond randomly collecting
urine samples. She is considering spending $50,000 on a
state-of-the-art "puffer" device that, like the security screening
machine at airports that seeks out explosives, detects several
varieties of narcotics. A school official uses a cloth to wipe
lockers, car door handles or bookbags, for example, and then puts the
cloth in the machine. In a test at Central High School earlier this
year, the machine found trace amounts of marijuana, methamphetamine
and heroin. Searches of the suspect vehicles and lockers turned up
no drugs, however.

This proposal is folly. Its most useful purpose would be to keep
school officials informed of which drugs are in vogue among students
and teachers. Otherwise, all it proves is that someone who had come
into contact with drugs also came into contact with an inanimate
object on campus, where hundreds of other students and educators
also had access.

When will the board acknowledge that this pharmaceutical witch hunt
has gone too far?

It appears board member Jim Malcolm is the swing vote on this issue.
He has historically opposed random drug testing, but his position has
softened inasmuch that he agreed in the spring to allow Tellone to
pursue the federal grant.

We urge Malcolm to revert to his previous stance and recognize that
there are better ways to reach the goal of reducing drug abuse. He
also might ponder how absolutely hypocritical it is to subject select
students to random urine testing and surreptitious wipe-downs of
their belongings, when neither board members, administrators,
teachers nor clerical workers are asked to submit to the same
demeaning, invasive practices.