PICK DRUG EDUCATION OVER DRUG TESTING

The trustees of the Garden Valley School Division might want to educate
themselves on the downside of student drug testing. Student involvement in
after-school activities like sports 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 ecstasy, meth, LSD or heroin 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 behaviour 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

Drug Policy Alliance

Washington, D.C.