JUST SAY NO TO RANDOM STUDENT DRUG TESTING

The Office of National Drug Control Policy is hosting the fifth
regional summit of 2007 in Detroit, which is designed to persuade
local educators and politicians to implement across-the-board random,
suspicionless student drug testing. The Bush administration is
selling a seductive premise: If you test students, they will finally,
at long last, "just say no" to illegal drugs (or face being caught by a test).

While the simplicity of this theory can be appealing, this unproven
policy actually runs counter to well-established principles of how
educators and parents can best promote healthy choices among
adolescents, particularly those most "at risk."

Students, educators and concerned citizens will attend the summit in
Detroit to provide educators with important missing information they
need to critically access a policy that is costly, intrusive and
potentially harmful to students.

Discussion of the scientific research evaluating random student drug
testing will be conspicuously absent from the presentations of this
government summit. For example, in March 2007, the American Academy
of Pediatrics published a policy statement holding, "there is little
evidence of the effectiveness of school-based drug testing in the
scientific literature." In fact, researchers at the University of
Michigan conducted the largest study on the topic to date, which
compared 94,000 students in 900 American schools with and without a
drug testing program, and found virtually no difference in illegal drug use.

Additionally, the federal office has yet again failed to invite
representatives from the Association of Addiction Professionals, the
National Education Association or the National Association of Social
Workers to the summit so they could discuss their concerns: that
these programs break down relationships of trust between students and
adults, hinder open communication, contribute to a hostile school
environment, and generally undermine the very protective factors that
have been shown to help keep young people stay connected to school
and out of trouble with drugs

Urine testing risks deterring students who refuse to consent from
extracurricular activities based on principle, fear of humiliation or
a desire to avoid detection. Of particular concern are students at
the "margins" who have much to gain from participating in
extracurricular activities. Erecting obstacles to their participation
carries even greater risks of harm. The programs also punish those
who test positive by suspending them from after-school activities.

While summit presenters insist the programs are non-punitive, they in
fact rely on the threat of removing students from the very activities
proven most effective in keeping them supervised and connected from 3
p.m. to 6 p.m. -- peak drug taking hours for teens. If that's not
punishment, what is?

Drug testing, in fact, provides limited information about student
drug use. The standard five panel test has a short window of
detection for most drugs other than marijuana and reveals nothing
about alcohol, tobacco, Ecstasy, OxyContin or inhalants. Each drug
added to the standard test ratchets up the cost and few schools can
afford the gold standards of certified laboratories.

Testing may trigger oppositional behavior -- such as trying to "beat"
the test. The American Academy of Pediatrics warns mandatory testing
may inadvertently encourage more students to abuse alcohol -- is not
included in many standard testing panels -- or may motivate some
drug-involved adolescents to switch to harder drug that leave the
system quickly.

Drug testing is an imperfect procedure that introduces a plethora of
problems regarding false positives, false negatives, specimen
collection, chain of custody and storage. Schools must ask students
to disclose their private medical information regarding their
prescription medications to control for false positives. While
promises of confidentiality are touted, when programs pull a student
from class for testing and then suddenly suspend them from the team,
it is not difficult for other students and teachers to figure out test results.

I urge Michigan educators to do their own research before accepting
the promises of random student drug testing.

Districts in other parts of the country have learned the hard way.
After five years the Janesville School District in Wisconsin
abandoned their random drug testing program with a $20,000 annual
price tag because it failed to reduce drug use among students,
particularly binge drinking. The Dublin School District in Ohio
abandoned their $35,000 drug testing program and instead hired two
full time substance abuse counselors. Join educators across the
country and "just say no" to across-the-board random student drug testing.