LEADING ARTICLE: DRUGS-TESTING: THE ENEMY WITHIN

Drugs-Testing Will Help Some Schools

When more than a third of all 15-year-olds have used drugs in the past
year, according to a Department of Health study, it is clear that parents
and teachers have too few weapons against an enemy that is largely
invisible. The Government's decision to let heads introduce random
drug-testing for children aged 14 and over will be a welcome addition to
schools' limited armoury. Not all will wish to make use of what are
effectively police powers to take urine samples from pupils and to use dogs
to sniff out drugs. But it must be right in principle to let head teachers
decide both whether to test and what to do with the results. Random testing
should deter some pupils, and stiffen the resolve of others to resist peer
pressure.

The Government's thinking has been inspired by the American experience. In
his latest State of the Union speech, George Bush cited an 11 per cent drop
in drug use among high-school students over the past two years, and gave
student drug testing much of the credit. Yet that is probably overstating
the case.

Last year's federally funded study of 76,000 students and 891 schools by
the University of Michigan found no significant difference in rates of drug
use between schools that had drug-testing programmes and those that did
not. Among twelfth graders, for example, 37 per cent reported having smoked
cannabis at schools that tested, while 36 per cent reported doing so at
schools that did not. Twenty-one per cent reported having used other drugs
at schools that tested; 19 per cent reported doing so at schools that did not.

The experiment is, nevertheless, still in its infancy. Only 5 per cent of
American schools test students randomly for drugs. Almost 20 per cent test
pupils who engage in sport or extra-curricular activities, but in some
cases this seems to have deterred pupils from participating in healthy
activities rather than from using the decidedly unhealthy drugs. Testing is
inevitably controversial because it is intrusive. In America, students must
be observed by a teacher or another adult as they urinate to make sure that
the sample is their own - which can be especially embarrassing for
adolescents. Some American teachers are concerned that testing distorts the
trust between teacher and pupil that should, in an ideal world, be the best
means of discouraging drug use in school. Similar concerns have been echoed
by some British teacher unions, although the National Association of Head
Teachers has broadly welcomed the move.

Sadly, the statistics make it clear that trust and respect are no longer
enough to combat the pushers. And new research, published in The Times last
month, suggests that the use of cannabis, especially the concentrated skunk
variety, is more likely to create profound mental health problems when
started at a young age. The health risks are very real, and they are growing.

It would, of course, be quite wrong for testing to create a false sense of
security. While it can usefully detect a fraction of users, it will
inevitably miss some of those who are in real trouble.

Whereas marijuana can take weeks to disappear from the body, for example,
ecstasy and alcohol disappear within hours. Parents and teachers need to
pay careful attention to other signs such as truancy, erratic behaviour and
falling grades. The fact is that youngsters who are most at risk of
substance abuse are more likely to be playing truant from school.

Drugs-testing powers must clearly be handled extremely carefully. Head
teachers will be the best judges of what their particular situation
requires. But like it or not, drugs are already forcing responsible
teachers and parents into closer scrutiny of children. Testing, sadly, is a
logical extension of that responsibility.