DRUG TESTING STUDENTS A MISGUIDED REACTION

Regarding your editorial on testing students for drugs (March 5):

Involvement in after-school activities like sports has been shown to reduce
drug use. They keep kids busy during the hours they are most likely to get
into trouble.

Forcing students to undergo degrading urine tests as a prerequisite will
only discourage participation. Drug testing also may compel marijuana users
to switch to harder drugs to avoid testing positive.

Despite the short-lived high it creates, marijuana is the only illegal drug
that stays in the human body long enough to make urinalysis a deterrent. A
student who takes methamphetamine, ecstasy or OxyContin on Friday night
likely will test clean on Monday.

If you think students don't know this, think again.

Anyone capable of running an Internet search can find out how to thwart a
drug test. The most commonly abused drug and the one most closely
associated with violent behavior is almost impossible to detect with
urinalysis. That drug is alcohol, and it takes far more student lives every
year than all illegal drugs combined.

Instead of wasting money on counterproductive drug tests, schools should
invest in reality-based drug education.

Robert Sharpe, Washington, The writer is a policy analyst, Common Sense
for Drug Policy.