A PHONY FIX

Boston's heroin epidemic will not be solved by random drug testing in the
public schools. The proposal, touted at a meeting this week of New England
governors, would divert money and energy that is far better directed at
education, massive drug treatment, and targeted police enforcement. Despite
the new rage for the idea in Washington, the White House drug czar, John
Walters, got it wrong when he said drug testing could be "the silver
bullet" in addressing heroin abuse.

The Bush administration is hosting a summit on Oct. 30 to promote student
drug testing, and the Supreme Court ruled last year that testing athletes
and members of extracurricular clubs does not violate students'
constitutional rights. But research on the efficacy of drug testing in
schools is extremely thin.

The most recent report, published in the Journal of School Health in April
and supported by a grant from the National Institute of Drug Abuse, found
that "drug testing of any kind, including for cause or suspicion, was not a
significant predictor for marijuana or other illicit drug use in any of the
samples" in more than 600 schools it surveyed.

The report also said a standard urine test to detect the presence of
marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and barbiturates costs between $14 and $40 per
sample, which might explain why drug tests are being conducted in a
relatively small number of schools. Interestingly, two former Drug
Enforcement Agency chiefs from the Ford and Reagan administrations, Robert
DuPont and Peter Besinger, have teamed up to form a drug testing company
that contracts with private employers.

At the governors' meeting, Governor Romney said he had not yet decided on
drug testing in Massachusetts schools. He should not let his head be turned
by Washington officials promoting this nonsolution.

Romney also vowed to bolster the drug treatment and education programs that
have been decimated by state budget cuts over the last two years. He could
start in Framingham, where the only detox center in the Metro West area
shut down in June because of state budget cuts, or in Quincy or Boston,
where other longtime programs have been shuttered. Obtusely, the
Massachusetts Legislature voted to cut funding for methadone programs last
spring. "Heroin is the one illicit drug for which we have excellent
treatment, and yet we don't use it," said David Rosenbloom, director of
Join Together, a drug abuse program at Boston University.

The drug problem in Massachusetts is real. Large supplies of cheap heroin
are flooding into Boston and other cities, creating a new generation of
addicts, tearing apart families, and destroying lives. Quick-fix schemes to
test all school students for drugs are an insulting substitute for
effective action.