SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT

GREAT FALLS, Va. -- In a continuation of their long-term
opposition to effective drug prevention policies, the American Civil
Liberties Union and the Drug Policy Alliance have together published a
slick booklet titled, "Making Sense of Student Drug Testing." The
booklet's purpose seems to be to disparage the increasingly popular
school health/safety-based drug prevention program of Random Student
Drug Testing.

Many communities throughout the nation are beginning to
consider adopting RSDT as a humanitarian means to eliminate drug use
and violence from their children's schools. But nearly all of those
efforts are being impeded and delayed by misguided opposition induced
by deceptive anti-RSDT propaganda. Numerous articles have appeared
parroting specious arguments made by anti-testing advocates that are
in turn being given widespread publicity in the media and on the
Internet. Meanwhile the United States' plague of schoolchild drug
abuse continues at a tragically high level.

The RSDT has the backing of federal drug-policy-related
institutions including the Supreme Court of the United States, the
U.S. Congress, the White House Office of Drug Control Policy, the Drug
Enforcement Administration, the Department of Education and all the
health-related federal agencies. The disinformation about the program
contrasts sharply with the fact of the thousand or more local school
administrations that currently use RSDT quite successfully throughout
this nation.

Nearly all of the commentary cites a University of Michigan
study that erroneously concludes that RSDT is not effective. However,
several authoritative reviewers such as Dr. Robert DuPont, founding
director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse, have criticized that
Michigan study, alleging that it is flawed. Furthermore, many
scientific studies now document the fact that RSDT is actually quite
effective. Some of these critical reviews and favorable studies can be
viewed at the National Student Drug Testing Committee's Web site:
studentdrugtesting.org/Effectiveness.htm.

The aforementioned booklet falsely claims that use of RSDT is
tantamount to presuming schoolchildren guilty of illicit activity;
that it compels teens to submit evidence against themselves and to
forfeit their privacy rights. However, the Supreme Court has twice
rebutted those false presumptions in its approval of RSDT as a legal
health/safety protection measure. Thus, RSDT is NOT a punitive
criminal justice measure as the booklet falsely implies. The actual
precedent for RSDT is that of testing children for head lice or
tuberculosis for treatment purposes in a school heath program.

Another claim is the totally speculative concern that RSDT
will decrease involvement in extracurricular activities among
students. But New Jersey high school Principal Lisa Brady, whose
school has long used RSDT, affirms just the opposite. She reported
that students were not deterred from extracurricular activities but
were quite happy to be involved in them because of the assurance of
less disruption by drug users.

The booklet deceptively ridicules the costs of RSDT with an
example from a Dublin, Ohio, school. It cites as not cost-efficient,
the cost of $3,200 per positive student for 11 positives among a total
of 1,473 students tested. But in fact these figures prove just the
opposite. Since RSDT is a well-documented deterrent to student drug
use, these figures actually demonstrate the true effect of the program
by having reduced their student drug use rate to less than 1 percent
(11 divided by 1,473.)

In typical schools without drug testing, surveys consistently
show that about 30 percent of children use drugs on a regular basis.
Therefore, comparing a former 30-percent student drug use rate to the
current 1-percent rate computes to a more than 96-percent reduction in
student drug use at that school.

This spectacular result is consistent with the
90-plus-percent reduction in drug use experienced by the military, at
businesses and in other schools that use drug testing. Thus, the costs
are extremely well-justified and not the waste of money the booklet
falsely portrays.

Millions of parents, many who have lost children to drugs
strongly support RSDT as a well-proven school health program to detect
and treat, but not punish, schoolchild drug involvement before it
becomes the dangerous brain disease of addiction that has destroyed so
many youths.

Parents and the many volunteer local community drug
prevention organizations they represent throughout the United States
are networking in a very difficult effort to reverse the pro-drug
propaganda that has misinformed the public about the legal and
effective humanitarian drug prevention strategy of health-based RSDT.

Because lying is such an integral part of drug use, parents usually do not
learn of their child's involvement with drugs until a crisis occurs. RSDT
gives them early warning and empowers them to seek help. Joyce Nalepka,
president of the national parents' organization, Drug Free Kids: America's
Challenge and former president of Nancy Reagan's National Federation of
Parents, says "We must give children clear 'No Drugs' messages and this is
best accomplished when reinforced by the accountability of student drug
testing."

DeForest Rathbone is chairman of the National Institute of Citizen Anti-drug
Policy in Great Falls, Va., and may be reached at DZR@prodigy.net.