BAD CIVICS LESSON FOR TEENS, SOCIETY

The Issue: Student Drug Testing And 'Zero Tolerance' Polices

Our View: Keep Kids Off Drugs, But Preserve Constitutional Rights

Due to the current national political climate and the silence of Illinois'
school code on the issue, officials in many districts, including some
nearby, are considering whether to join the roughly 19 percent of school
districts nationwide that subject all students to random drug tests.

Though we emphatically support the desire to make schools drug free - no
parent wants drugs or guns or booze in school - subjecting all students to
such tests is absolutely the wrong way to go about it.

And while such a rule would do little to curb substance abuse, it would go
a long way toward teaching students a valuable, modern-day civics lesson -
that Constitutional protections, such as the need for probable cause prior
to search or arrest, have fallen victim to misinformation. Politicians are
eager to appear tough on crime, and our culture has an incessant need to
blame someone or something besides parents for the actions of kids.

The U.S. Supreme Court opened the door by allowing the testing of student
athletes in the1990s. In 2002, the court further expanded the provision to
students in all extracurricular activities and now, perhaps, to just about
everyone, including your own honor student.

A leading proponent of this "guilty until proven innocent" push is Michael
Walsh, a former federal drug policy official who heads the Walsh Group, a
federally funded firm that reportedly makes a lot of money promoting drug
testing technologies and policy to states.

Insiders like Waters and ex-drug czar Bob DuPont, owner of another private
testing firm, helped lead the push resulting in states, including Illinois
and a handful of others, enacting "zero tolerance per se" DUI laws. Such
laws don't require proof of impairment and target drivers found to have the
mere presence of drug "metabolites" in their bodies, though metabolites
have no more connection to impaired driving than sugar molecules from a
Snickers bar.

School urine drug tests are equally flawed. Due to the rigid laws of
chemistry, a weekend binge drinker or teen idiot who parties on cocaine or
crystal meth Friday night has a good chance that their urine sample will be
squeaky clean in time for classes on Monday.

What dangerous message does that send to teens? Skip the grass and stick
with booze, meth and cocaine?

Meanwhile, a new study shows teens are finding creative ways to abuse
prescription drugs, just like their parents. They've figured out they are
less likely to get busted at school - or on the road - if their drug of
choice is available by prescription.

The seemingly limitless choices include Valium and various forms of speed
and oxycontin, a widely abused painkiller not unlike heroin in its power to
addict and destroy.

The courts, politicians and busybodies with urine collection cups are no
substitute for parents, police, counselors and pastors who take the time
and show interest needed to guide kids in such a way that they won't look
to chemicals or booze or risky sex for a sense of well being or acceptance.

But unfortunately, punishing everyone - and trampling on basic
Constitutional rights - seems to many a far easier and less time-consuming,
solution.