COST KEEPS DRUG TESTING AT MINIMUM

Despite a June 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allowed the
Tecumseh School District to drug test students involved in
extracurricular activities, the state's largest districts have shied
from adopting similar policies.

Of the state's top 10 districts, only two have drug-testing policies.
Broken Arrow tests athletes and voluntary members of the Drug Free
Youth organization. But Union Public Schools only tests members of
Drug Free Youth.

Other districts with drug-testing policies include Ada, Roff, Jenks,
Macomb, Duncan and Blanchard. Yukon may join the ranks in the fall.

Costly endeavors High costs discourage some districts from embracing
student drug testing.

Cost was definitely a factor when Tulsa -- the state's largest
district -- nixed the possibility of student drug testing a couple of
years ago, district spokesman John Hamill said.

"You're talking about 43,000 students," he said.

Superintendent Bob Neel said it cost Guymon, which has about 2,500
students, about $4,500 a year for drug tests.

Drumright School District gets donations from local businesses and
community groups to keep its policy funded. Other districts charge
their students between $5 and $20 to administer drug tests. Because
the tests are given to students who voluntarily participate in school
activities, the fees are allowed, officials said.

A few students will pay between $30 and $70 for detox mixtures that
can decrease detection of their drug use.

It worked for Tim, a former Midwest City-Del City student who asked
that his last name be withheld, who said he and his friends have
passed job-related drug tests after ingesting liquids that flush the
body of toxins.

"I drank some of the most disgusting things I've ever drank" to pass a
drug test, Tim said. "If you're lucky ... I guess it works."

A reason to say 'no' But some students aren't so lucky. After the
drug-related death of a 15-year-old and drug overdose of an
18-year-old in May, Yukon school officials began hosting community
meetings to determine whether to test students involved in school
activities.

Yukon High School sophomore Seth Meier said random drug tests might
make a dent in what he sees as a significant drug problem.

"It'll give kids a good reason to say 'no,'" Meier, 16, said. "It
could be you, any time, who gets tested. So in the back of their
minds, that's what they're thinking."

Tecumseh's six-year-old drug-testing policy is based on the premise
that drug testing allows students the opportunity to say no without
ridicule from their peers.

One Tecumseh student backed that theory in a letter to the district
two years ago. The student wrote that peer pressure to try drugs
increased while the district's policy was suspended pending the
Supreme Court's ruling.

"If you're in those activities, they leave you alone," Assistant
Superintendent Danny Jacobs said.

Does it work? But it may not be the actively involved students who
have drug problems. Some research suggests that students in
extracurricular activities are less likely to use drugs.

A nationwide survey compared about 76,000 students in schools with and
without drug testing and found the policies made little difference in
student drug use.

Tim said he used drugs during his senior year in high school.

"All of my stoner friends didn't play sports or were (not) in school
activities," said Tim, now 23.

"For some people, the drugs are worth giving up playing football,
playing basketball," he said.

Testing those students who participate in after-school activities
won't solve drug problems, said Micheal Salem, a Norman attorney who
argued against student drug testing in the Tecumseh case on behalf of
the American Civil Liberties Union.

"Drug testing based on random testing is nothing more than a search
without probable cause or a reasonable suspicion," Salem said.

When schools administer drug tests to students they suspect are using
drugs, "at least you're targeting the problem," he said.

Guymon Public Schools two years ago ended a three-year-old student
drug-testing policy because it was not an effective deterrent against
drug use, officials said.

"We felt like we weren't reaching some of the kids we needed to,"
Superintendent Neel said.