STATE OFFERS FUNDING TO SCHOOLS FOR DRUG TESTING

BOSTON - The state will give schools $100,000 to launch voluntary student
drug testing as part of a new strategy released yesterday to combat drug
and alcohol abuse.

The testing is billed as the linchpin for redoubled prevention efforts to
head off epidemic levels of drug abuse, notably OxyContin and heroin abuse.
Salem School Superintendent Herbert Levine, who joined Lt. Gov. Kerry
Healey in unveiling the plan, said students would have to take the tests if
a district voluntarily decides to implement the program. He recounted his
experience in helping his 20-year-old son battle an OxyContin addiction.
And he said his son said testing would have scared him away from taking
opiates.

"I don't think that student testing is necessarily the answer to all of the
problem," Levine said. "But it is an answer, it's another arrow in the
quiver for us in education to be able to help parents."

Healey said it would target a trend among younger and younger students
trying and taking drugs. She said 12.9 years old is the average age in
Massachusetts for someone first using marijuana.

However, the Massachusetts chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union
said there is no evidence student drug testing works.

"What is voluntary about it?" asked Sarah Wunsch, staff attorney for
ACLU-Massachusetts. "The kids may have some rights here that would be
violated." Wunsch said the state would be better off spending more on
education and treatment, including a needle exchange program.

The plan concentrates on four areas: prevention, early intervention,
enforcement and accountability. It would be funded through a $9.1 million
supplemental budget bill the Romney administration filed earlier this year.
The supplemental budget would help the state leverage $14.5 million in
matching federal money. Healey said an additional 6,000 to 8,000 people
would get detox services, out of an estimated 40,000 who now need services
but do not seek or get services. In 2004, 82,440 people received publicly
funded treatment services. The plan includes $50,000 per school in targeted
communities for police resource officers.

In deference to local control, Healey said the state would provide the
support should districts and communities want to launch a drug-testing
program. "We want science-based programming, things that we know work,"
Healey said. "We will not be reinventing the wheel here. We're going to be
doing things that we know worked in other communities."

Levine said districts could make the testing acceptable or even attractive
without making it punitive. He said a voluntary drug-testing program could
be launched as early as 2006, though he will not be around to see it
because he is scheduled to retire June 30.

"Some folks have an issue with student drug testing under any
circumstances," Levine said. "There are others who would support it under
any circumstances. What we're trying to do is find a balance."

Prevention now accounts for only about 11 percent of the $250 million spent
annually on substance abuse services in Massachusetts. The plan draws
extensively from information gathered over the past year, when Healey
traveled the state and met with school officials, parents, health
care advocates and law enforcement officials. Some of the information came
from regional round-table discussions led by Essex County District Attorney
Jonathan W. Blodgett.

"We welcome any state support in coordinating ways to choke off these
drugs," Blodgett said last night. He said early education and intervention
are increasingly important in combating drug use and abuse among young
people. Healey praised current enforcement efforts, but indicated the state
could provide better coordination through the interagency council. The plan
also calls for expanded treatment services for incarcerated individuals and
a real-time response network at hospitals to better identify the drug abuse
problem and numbers of overdoses.

Gov. Mitt Romney yesterday signed an executive order to establish an
Interagency Council on Substance Abuse and Prevention, to be led by Healey,
to coordinate efforts among 13 state agencies that now provide services.
Romney also filed legislation to stiffen penalties for those convicted of
making or distributing methamphetamine. The bill would make amphetamines
manufacture and trafficking a felony, subject to up to five years in prison
and $20,000 in fines.

Sen. Steven A. Tolman, D-Watertown, the chairman of the Legislature's new
Committee on Mental Health and Substance Abuse, said methamphetamine is the
next big battle facing Massachusetts after the OxyContin abuse. Tolman
endorsed the new strategy and underscored his committee's support for
prevention efforts.

"The first step is getting the message out to the children: Do not try this
drug, it is a suicide pact," Tolman said.