ATHLETES PASS SCHOOL DRUG TESTS

The results are in, and Whitfield County's two high schools don't seem to
have a drug problem among their student athletes. Last March, the Whitfield
County Board of Education approved mandatory random drug testing of high
school students who play organized sports. This year the policy went into
effect.

So far, Southeast Whitfield High School has tested 32 students for drugs.

Northwest has tested 40 students.

Neither school has reported a positive test. "This is a very positive sign.
It speaks well for our athletes and for our athletic programs," said
superintendent Tom Dickson. Dickson said no athlete has refused to take a
test. And the reception from parents has been very positive, he said.
"Parents are looking for all of the help they can get in teaching their
children about the seriousness of drug use," Dickson said. The U.S. Supreme
Court ruled in 1995 that schools can require drug tests from student athletes.

And this spring, the Court said that schools can require tests to
participate in other activities involving interscholastic competition, such
as the debate team and chess club. Dickson said Whitfield has no plans for
now of expanding its testing program to other activities. The University of
Michigan Institute for Social Research reports just 5 percent of the
nation's 15,500 public school districts test student athletes, and just 2
percent test other students. Virtually all of these districts are small
ones. Most of them are in small towns, rural areas or suburbs.

And most are in the South or Midwest. There's no evidence that small school
districts have worse drug problems than large districts in urban areas.

In fact, there's some evidence that small systems tend to have fewer drug
problems than large urban districts. But experts say small districts are
more apt to test because of local politics.

In places where everyone knows his school board member, it's easier for a
small group of people really concerned about the issue to lobby for
testing, they say. The Whitfield County Board of Education approved drug
testing after three football players at Northwest Whitfield High School
were arrested for marijuana possession last November. "We had parents,
students and coaches ask for the policy," Dickson said. Locally, neither
Murray County schools nor Dalton schools test student athletes for drugs.
"It just isn't something that the schools or parents have ever brought up.
We'd certainly consider it if they did," said Tommy Boggs, chairman of the
Dalton Board of Education. Becky Whaley, public relations director for
Murray County Schools, said she could not recall the topic being discussed
there. In August, the White House Office of National Drug Policy began
distributing a pamphlet supporting school drug testing. "Testing has been
shown to be extremely effective at reducing drug use in schools and
businesses," the government guide said. "As a deterrent, few methods work
better or deliver cleaner results." But many health and education groups -
including the National Education Association and the American Academy of
Pediatrics - oppose random drug tests of students. Students who engage in
extracurricular activities, they say, are only half as likely as other
students to use drugs.

That means taking part in sports and other activities can help reduce the
chances a child will use drugs.

But requiring drug tests to participate in these activities may scare away
the very children who need to be in those programs the most, they argue.
Both sides have anecdotal evidence to support their position. But there are
few peer-reviewed, scientific studies of drug testing programs, so it's
difficult to say what impact, if any, these drug testing programs really
have. The consequences of a positive test vary from district to district.

In most, a positive test brings loss of playing time and mandatory drug
counseling. A second positive test can earn a student anything from loss of
prom attendance to suspension for the rest of the school year. Some systems
send repeat violators to special alternative schools.

Penalties to pay In Whitfield County, a positive test brings a minimum
four-week suspension from the athletic program and mandatory counseling.
The student must have a negative drug test and agree to further testing
before he or she will be allowed to resume play. A second offense will
result in suspension from athletics for at least one calendar year and more
counseling. Whitfield County, like other systems, does not report positive
drug tests to law enforcement. The Supreme Court decisions allowing schools
to test seems to forbid them from such notification. "The purpose of the
test really isn't to catch students, but to discourage them from using
drugs in the first place," Dickson said. Whitfield County schools use
urinalysis to test for drugs.

The system hasn't received invoices for the tests done so far. But it says
it expects the tests to cost about $15 each. According to the federal
Department of Education, most schools pay between $25 and $60 a test. The
more accurate the test, the more it costs.

And the more drugs a school tests for, the more it costs. Most schools test
only for marijuana, cocaine, amphetamine/methamphetamine, opiates and PCB.
Some schools also test for steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs.
Whitfield County's drug policy says the drugs it tests for "may include but
are not limited to: alcohol, amphetamines, anabolic steroids, barbiturates,
benziodazepines, cocaine, marijuana, methadone, opiates, phencycline and
propophene." Whitfield County may test for alcohol, but most districts
don't. Alcohol leaves a person's body pretty quickly.

Depending upon how much a person drinks, it could leave within hours,
rendering alcohol tests useless. "A student can drink on Friday night and
still likely pass an alcohol test the next Monday afternoon," said Darrell
Rogers, a spokesman for Students for Sensible Drug Policy, a Washington,
D.C., group that opposes mandatory testing of students. Rogers says most
students know this.

"To the extent that drug testing discourages students from taking other
drugs, it may just encourage them to substitute alcohol, which is already
the most widely used drug by high school students," Rogers said. But
alcohol isn't the only drug that leaves the body relatively quickly.

Many hallucinogens, such as LSD and psychedelic mushrooms, can pass through
a person in a day or so. So can Ecstasy. "But marijuana, depending on how
much you use and how strong it is, can be spotted by a test for several
weeks after you use it. Kids know this, and I've been told by more than one
teenager that they've simply switched from smoking marijuana to taking LSD
so they don't get caught by a test," Rogers said. Whitfield's Dickson said
that drug testing may indeed have such an unintended consequence. "But I
hope the lesson students learn isn't that they should use drugs that are
difficult to test for, but that they shouldn't use drugs at all," he said.