DON'T DRUG TEST OUR INNOCENT CHILDREN

Our View: Vista Unified, Federal Plans Invade Privacy Of Those Doing
Right To Catch Those Doing Wrong

If parents want to test their kids for drugs, the kits are cheap and
available these days. But Vista Unified School District and other
public officials should stick to education.

Board members of the Vista school district, which includes parts of
Oceanside, voted unanimously last week to begin random drug testing of
all those wise students at Rancho Buena Vista and Vista High who take
advantage of extracurricular activities. Perhaps there was not a vice
principal available to remind the board members that being popular
isn't everything.

Separately, officials with the White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy are scheduled to hold a workshop Wednesday in San Diego
to convince more local school administrators to adopt widespread drug
testing of students in extracurricular activities.

It just doesn't make sense. Research shows that kids are better able
to stay off drugs when they play sports or join clubs like the
debating society, the school newspaper or the chess club. Why would
officials want to discourage such participation by treating kids like
criminals ---- forcing insecure adolescents to give urine samples?

And although there are some authorities who say drug testing helps
kids say no to pushy peers, there is at least one credible study that
found mass testing fails to reduce rates of drug use by students.

Then there is the matter of federal intrusion into local policy: We
don't want the White House telling school districts how to handle
student discipline any more than we want our school officials to
demand urine from our children.

Of course, keeping kids from using alcohol and other drugs should be a
national priority. Drug addiction destroys lives, feeds terrorism and
saps the economy ---- it is clearly our greatest public health challenge.

Yet the Vista school district and President Bush would invade the
bodies and trample the privacy of an overwhelming majority of
drug-free students in order to deter or catch a few who need help.

Mass drug testing crosses an old and noble line that has properly
corralled officials since the founding of the republic. What makes the
American system work so well is that government officials must leave
the people alone in most circumstances. Intervention in people's lives
requires some clear evidence that they are doing something wrong.

Officials often drift to less freedom in the name of greater security,
requiring the public to reassert that fundamental right to be left
alone.

When parents send children to school, they temporarily delegate some
parental responsibility to the institution. This delegation does not
automatically include the parental imperative to protect their child's
rights.

If a student shows signs of drug abuse, local schools have plenty of
options available to help that individual student, in collaboration
with parents whenever possible.

But mass drug testing is an offense against liberty; no government,
federal or local, should subject a broad category of innocent children
to indignities in hopes of catching a few in destructive behavior.
What a terrible lesson for Vista's children.