DRUG-TEST FOLLIES II

Two weeks after one drug-testing program ended in failure, Miami-Dade
School Board member Demetrio Perez is proposing another. Tomorrow he'll ask
the board to seek legislative authority so that all 175,000 students in
grades six through 12 can be required to be drug-tested before starting
school each fall beginning in 2000-2001. Parents would pay about $35 per
child.

Alas, this well-meaning plan turns American jurisprudence upside down. In
effect it requires students to prove their innocence, and it subjects them
to an intrusive form of search in the absence of any probable cause to do so.

Conducting drug tests on an individual because of generalized assumptions
about that individual's age cohort is not much different from the racial
and ethnic "profiling" that's causing legitimate criticism of police
agencies' searches. The school district should leave drug-testing decisions
to parents and focus instead on drug education.