BEWARE OF DRUG TESTING

In regard to Friday's editorial "Could Seneca Valley's size be a factor in
its drug problem:"

Seneca Valley School District officials need to educate themselves on the
downside of student drug testing.

Last year, the Supreme Court issued a controversial ruling that paved the
way for school-drug testing of kids who enroll in extracurricular
activities. This latest drug war exemption to the Constitution may do more
harm than good.

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 drugs to avoid testing positive. Despite a short- lived
high, marijuana is the only drug that stays in the human body long enough
to make urinalysis a deterrent. Marijuana's organic metabolites are
fat-soluble and can linger for days.

Synthetic drugs are water-soluble and exit the body quickly. A student who
takes heroin, ecstasy or LSD on Friday night will likely test clean on
Monday morning.

If you think students don't know this, think again. Anyone capable of
running a search on the Internet 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 student lives every year than all illegal
drugs combined.

Instead of wasting money on counterproductive drug tests, schools should
invest in reality-based drug education.

Robert Sharpe

Program Officer, Drug Policy Alliance

Washington, D.C.