In Our View: Columbian Editorial Writers Beg To Differ

SHOULD HIGH SCHOOLS IN CLARK COUNTY INSTITUTE VOLUNTARY URINE TESTS FOR
STUDENTS?

Yes: Community members, including teen-agers, cry out for ways to highlight
and reward achievements of youth. They are tired of the constant media
coverage and money spent on teens who are not making good choices.

The Camas School District is changing that for its young people. In Camas,
60 percent of seniors in a districtwide survey say they have experimented
with both alcohol and marijuana. Even more troubling, there's been a shift
in drug use among Camas teens from alcohol and marijuana to cocaine and
heroin.

To combat the problem, the district will allow students to voluntarily
provide urine samples. Those who prove they are drug-free will be rewarded
with such things as ski trips or discounts at local businesses. The program
is funded by area grants and donations.

While participation is voluntary, critics say the program violates
students' privacy rights. If it were mandatory, they would have a case.
Others say it will simply reward students who'd be drug-free anyway. It
will. It should. And it may help more teens stay clean.

- -- Elizabeth Hovde

No: "Voluntary," as the U.S. Supreme Court has noted more than once, can be
a very deceptive term when applied to public schools.

No child ages 8 to 16 -- the years covered by our state's
compulsory-attendance law -- is in school voluntarily. Throughout
adolescence, peer pressure can be nearly overwhelming. That's one reason
teen sex, drug use and violence are such persistent problems.

Prevention programs rightly seek to counter peer influences and encourage
kids to make smart, healthy choices. Encouragement turns to coercion,
however, when teens are promised ski trips or discount CDs in exchange for
surrendering their rights to privacy. And what's a teacher to think if a
student refuses to "volunteer" to pee in a cup? That the kid's acting on
principle? Or that she's hiding an illegal addiction? So much for
presumption of innocence.

Replacing peer pressure with adult bribery and the promise of instant
gratification is no way to put teens on the path to responsible adulthood.

- - Michael Zuzel