ON INCREASED DRUG TESTING: GO SLOW

Reporter Glen Leyden's story in the Aug. 18 Star about drug-testing in high
schools hopefully sounded a wake-up call not just for high school students
and parents, but for all public-aware readers of our paper.

The critical question it raises is: Just how far do we want to go as a
society in compromising individual liberty and the right to privacy in
trying to keep our young people away from the dangers of drugs,
performance-enhancers, alcohol and tobacco?

The article made clear that most high school leaders don't want to go very
far at all. Even as the current U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that schools
have the right to randomly test not just athletes but also other students
involved in extra-curricular activities, local school officials are
reticent to exercise that right. Citing the high cost of testing - the
average urine test costs $35 to conduct and analyze in a laboratory - and
the philosophical questions such tests raise, they are stepping into this
minefield very gingerly.

We are glad that is so. The Supreme Court's ruling was highly controversial
among the justices, who ruled 5-4 for broader testing rights. We were
particularly impressed by the comments of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in
her dissent of Justice Clarence Thomas' majority opinion. She said
extending testing beyond the 1995 ruling allowing drug testing for athletes
is "not reasonable, capricious and even perverse" - and self-defeating. She
said students involved in extra- curricular activities - everything from
band to mathletes to chess club - are less likely to do drugs, so a testing
policy would be focusing on the wrong students. And, such policy might very
well discourage students inclined to use drugs to join positive activities
and clubs in which drug use is frowned upon.

An American Civil Liberties Union spokesman quoted in Leyden's piece argued
further that drug testing healthy, active members of their school
environment is counter-productive, even "corrosive." Extended testing, he
said, could very well further alienate teens already cynical about rising
intrusions on their privacy.

We also found the admonition of Lockport High School Superintendent Chris
Ward of special value: "Do schools really want to get into that kind of
thing?" he asked. "Are we taking the pressure of parents to be responsible
for their kids' behavior?"

Random drug testing of athletes - who might be in additional peril of
injury to themselves or others - can perhaps be defended on health and
safety grounds. Some schools, like Homewood-Flossmoor High School, have a
highly intelligent, confidential, no-punishment random testing program for
athletes that is apparently effective and broadly acceptable in the
community. It is based on treatment rather than "seek and punish."

Still, we think schools are right to act very carefully, listening closely
to their constituent communities. This is a very dicey area, one into which
the school community should tread with great trepidation.