AN UNJUSTIFIED TEST

No doubt Garden Valley Collegiate, in Winkler, Man., has good intentions in
wanting to administer random drug and alcohol tests to its student
athletes. The school, which would be the first in Canada to adopt such a
policy, likens it to random roadside breathalyzer tests. But where is the
carnage on the sports fields that would justify this massive intrusion on
personal privacy?

Illegal drug use among youths and adults is a serious problem. The damage
is obvious in shattered lives, ruined health and crime. Athletes who are
feeling no pain may put themselves at risk on the playing field or hockey rink.

Against that background, civil liberties, and the protection from arbitrary
searches, are harder to argue for. When a liberty is weakened, the damage
is not immediately visible, and may never be.

Nonetheless, the right to privacy is the core of all freedoms; without
privacy there can be no individuality. And the privacy of the body is the
core of the privacy right.

More than good intentions are needed when limiting a core right. There must
be evidence that the drug testing is not arbitrary, that its benefits will
outweigh its drawbacks and that the problem is so serious it requires such
an extreme intrusion. On all those grounds, random drug testing of
high-school athletes fails to measure up.

Why student athletes, as opposed to all students or, as in some U.S.
jurisdictions, anyone involved in extracurricular activities, such as
members of the marching band or the chess club? Is there any evidence
athletes have higher drug use than the norm? (The Winkler school has
collected data on drug use but would not share it with The Globe and Mail.)
Is there evidence athletes are more prone to using drugs than, say, their
teachers? Perhaps the teachers should be tested, since it could be argued
that teachers who are inebriated or high are a menace to their students.

The school argues that safety and performance are the key issues. But if
performance were truly key, all students would have to be tested, since
their academic performance would surely suffer from drug use, and it's more
important than athletic performance.

Safety? The drug and alcohol tests will not be held at game time. They will
provide no evidence of whether someone is using narcotics during a game. In
any event, the risk seems more theoretical than real. The school has no
sense of how big a problem injuries among substance-using athletes has been.

The benefits, as the school sees them, would be to encourage students to
reject drugs, and to determine who is using them and place them in a
counselling program. One drawback is that any students who do use drugs may
simply stop coming out for school teams. Another is that a young,
impressionable group is being sent a message that authorities see nothing
wrong with invading their privacy rights.

A study last year by the Addictions Foundation of Manitoba found that about
6 per cent of high-school students reported having moderate or serious
problems with alcohol. Thirty-eight per cent reported using cannabis in the
previous year; no other drug was used by more than 5 per cent. This is
hardly the stuff of an epidemic.

The school, which has asked Manitoba's Ombudsman to approve its draft
policy, should think again. If it does not, the Ombudsman should nix the idea.