WHY DRUG-TESTING OF CHILDREN WON'T WORK

ONE evening several years ago, in the run-up to Christmas, my son decided
it was high time I started my drugs education. "Herod is the worst drug,"
he informed me earnestly. "It kills babies." He was in primary one, and he
had already absorbed more - albeit muddled - information about drugs in two
terms than I had in my entire school career.

When I was at school, speed = distance/time. This was at a state school in
Paisley's Ferguslie Park, which at that time was labelled the worst sink
estate in northern Europe. These days, even the poshest little primary-one,
private-school princess is au fait with the concept of drugs. I don't have
a problem with this if the lesson imparted is that drugs are illegal,
potentially dangerous and to be avoided at all costs. But this is not the
message the government is putting across.

Two years ago, the Scottish Executive abandoned its hardline, anti-drugs
strategy in favour of educating children to make "informed healthy choices
about drugs". In place of the discredited Just Say No campaign came Know
The Score, which aims to provide practical information about drugs.
Increasingly, however, Know The Score looks like how to score; a quick fix.

Now, courtesy of Tony Blair and the News of the World, we are to have a
radical new drugs policy - the random testing of pupils for illegal
substances, an idea imported from America, where it has been championed by
right-wing religious fundamentalists. Next month, head teachers in England
and Wales will be given details of the new scheme. In Scotland, Jack
McConnell has adopted his favourite position and is once more perched
firmly on the fence. It may yet be adopted in Scotland.

The random drug-testing of children is evidence of New Labour's continuing
addiction to easy headlines and simplistic solutions. This latest
policy-by-tabloid was backed up by a poll purporting to show that the
majority of parents are in favour of the scheme.

Official confirmation that your child is clean is no doubt reassuring for
parents. You can also see why a parent, worried sick about a child's
behaviour and unwilling to take their repeated denials at face value, might
even welcome definitive proof of a son or daughter's involvement in drugs.
But once you have proof, what happens next? Do you hand them over to the
police? Do you strip-search them every time they leave or enter the house?

It is unlikely your children will meekly co-operate with any drugs
programme you might frog-march them to, assuming you can find a programme
willing to take them. The chances are that they will never trust you again.
They could be expelled, a move which could jeopardise their future and
leave you scrabbling to find somewhere for them to finish their education.

As soon as you look beyond the most superficial of knee-jerk responses, it
is difficult to see why parents would want to collude with a government
policy whose effect would be to turn children into quasi-criminals and
force them to prove their innocence.

And the vast majority are innocent. According to the Scottish Executive,
"reported use of drugs has changed little since 1998, with 23 per cent of
15-year-olds and 8 per cent of 13-year-olds having used drugs in the month
prior to the survey". Very few pupils reported using anything other than
cannabis. which, with a logic unique to Downing Street, the government has
just downgraded from a class B to a class C drug.

In some American schools, pupils must perform urine tests in front of an
observer to prevent them cheating - the practice of getting friends to hide
drug-free samples in cubicles is widespread. The mortification and
humiliation for a young girl hitting puberty with all that that entails
hardly bears thinking about. Nor is random drug-testing conducive to the
government's aim of encouraging children to stay on at school. And just
when did the classrooms of America become role models for Britain's schools?

Assume for a moment that the random testing of pupils works, and the
evidence from the US is that it does not - state-funded research by the
University of Michigan showed no significant difference in rates of drug
use between schools which had drug-testing programmes and those which
didn't. Assume it costs nothing - and the US tests cost between $10 and $30
each. Assume it could be easily and practically implemented - and teachers
have grave doubts. Assume it doesn't contradict other aspects of government
policy on drugs - which it clearly does. Assume we have ample, successful
drug programmes to help kids kick the habit - which we don't. Even assuming
all that, what sort of society condones the random drug-testing of children?

The answer is a society which does not value its freedoms; a society happy
to collude with a government using the bluntest of political instruments to
achieve its aims.

We can, after all, prevent most forms of anti-social behaviour by putting
great swathes of the population under constant surveillance or by randomly
and unexpectedly invading the privacy of individuals. Most police states
have very low levels of crime. Such policy does not, however, promote trust
and individual responsibility - the two key ingredients for a peaceful,
civilised existence.

This is not simply an argument about civil liberties, or about dodgy,
unproven policy, or about the disadvantages of turning teachers into
warders or about the increasing encroachment by the state into the lives of
its citizens. It is fundamentally an argument about how we view our children.

Increasingly, the government seems to view them as Midwich cuckoos - a
strange, maverick generation whose malign influence must be quashed at any
cost.

Children have a strong sense of justice and idealism. They have a natural
respect for authority. Responsible parents and good teachers foster this.
But how do you learn to respect an authority which is intent on stripping
you of all dignity and responsibility?

You only have to think of the film American Beauty, where the fanatical,
disciplinarian father routinely tests his son for drugs, to see the degree
of alienation, suspicion and dysfunction this kind of behaviour engenders,
not to mention the numerous deceits invented by the son to undermine it.

Once drug-testing becomes a rite of passage for a generation of children,
why stop there? Why not breathalyse them on their way to school or run
medical checks to establish their virginity?

Trust is the vital component of any relationship, but it is not something
that appears to be valued by New Labour. Tony Blair has recklessly
squandered the huge reserves of trust vested in him. Now he plans to
destroy the trust established between parent and child; school and pupil.

Random testing for children does not represent a clever new policy to
combat the scourge of drugs; it is the politics of failure.