Editorial: Test Trap

WHAT do vinegar, washing detergent, aspirin and orange juice have in common
with a product marketed on the Internet as Urine Luck?

All these are supposed to be tried and tested substances to help an addict
pass a drug test.

A drug detox product, Urine Luck is touted to destroy all toxins in a urine
sample. Odorless and soluble, the liquid comes in micro-vials ("buy three,
get one free"). It's pushed as a must-have for anyone apt to be embarrassed
by a random drug test. The clincher? Urine Luck can be bought by anyone
with a credit card and a working knowledge of how to use a search engine to
buy this on the cybermarket.

It's not only old wives' remedies or sly Internet merchandise that's
encroaching on the reliability of drug tests to curb the drug menace.
Although the controversy over the Mandaue shabu laboratories has touched
off a rash of drug testing involving the city mayor, city hall officials
and employees, and even the city's male public school teachers, it may be
that the tests create problems almost as troublesome as the drug toxins
being detected.

Choke Point

Drug testing in schools, for instance, is virtually not implemented despite
a provision in Republic Act 9165 (Comprehensive Drug Act of 2002) that
requires drug testing for students, along with applicants for driver's and
firearms license, candidates for national and local elections, inmates
imprisoned for six years or longer, and government and private sector
employees.

The Commission on Higher Education's (Ched) Memorandum Order 19, issued
last Sept. 15, 2003, mandates random drug testing of students in public and
private, secondary and tertiary/higher educational institutions, as well as
technical vocational schools.

Although the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) guidelines for implementation
uphold students' constitutional rights to due process, equal protection and
self-incrimination, drug testing is seen as infringing on academic freedom,
harassing students and isolating drug dependents in greater need of
counseling and guidance.

Dr. Portia Dacalos, guidance services specialist at the University of the
Philippines in the Visayas, Cebu College, notes the recalcitrance of many
UPians to mandatory drug testing for violating human rights. While drug
tests may be a "short cut for weeding out" drug dependents, Dacalos
emphasized "affirmative action" through advocacy and counseling as being
less traumatic and more rehabilitative.

Deterrent

It is not only the blunt, incriminating nature of drug tests that makes
academics hostile to it. Josephine Villa, guidance coordinator of the Cebu
State College of Science and Technology (CSCST), views testing as only
partly useful as it proves only a habit of drug use but does not address
the reasons at the root of the addiction.

Villa cites the one-on-one interview as being not only effective in
surfacing both the problem and solution; it is also cheaper than a drug
test. A lesson culled from drug test programs is that it requires regular
testing to establish that repeat offenders stay clean. The accuracy of
urine testing has also been questioned, with even the Philippine Basketball
Association requiring the more accurate but also more expensive hair
follicle test for professional cagers.

Since the DDB guidelines provide that the fees of drug testing laboratories
will be paid by the Department of Health, it is doubtful whether the
government, restricted by austerity measures, can afford to implement Ched
Memorandum Order 19.

True Test

For all its detractors say, the drug test is still a way to confirm the
effectiveness of school-based drug prevention programs. Villa says CSCST
adopts a "no drugs, no frats" policy on campus. Students sign a waiver they
will not join any fraternity. The CSCST guidance coordinator observes that
their students, majority of whom have financial limitations, cannot afford
an expensive drug habit.

Unfortunately, the street trade has made shabu, the so-called poor man's
cocaine, even affordable to out-of-school youths and trisikad drivers.
Dacalos believes that no monitoring system can totally guarantee that
campuses will be drug-free.

Even the intrepid manufacturers of Urine Luck admit that their miracle
product cannot bump off abstinence as the no. 1 way to guarantee negative
drug test results. But until everyone on campus opts to abstain from drugs,
the government, academe, youths and their parents will have to negotiate a
middle road in order not to lose in the drug race.