DRUG TEST NOT BASED IN REALITY

Student involvement in after-school activities has been shown to reduce drug
use. They keep kids busy during the hours they are most likely to get into
trouble. Forcing students to undergo degrading urine tests as a prerequisite
will only discourage participation in extracurricular activities.

Drug testing may also compel users of relatively harmless marijuana to
switch to harder synthetic drugs to avoid testing positive. Despite a
short-lived high, organic marijuana is the only illegal drug that stays in
the human body long enough to make urinalysis a deterrent.

If you think students don't know this, think again. Anyone capable of
running an Internet search can find out how to thwart a drug test. Drug
testing profiteers do not readily volunteer this information, for obvious
reasons.

The most commonly abused drug and the one most closely associated with
violent behavior is almost impossible to detect with urinalysis. That drug
is alcohol, and it takes far more lives every year than all illegal drugs
combined. Instead of wasting money on counterproductive drug tests, schools
should invest in reality-based drug education.