DISTRICT RIGHT ON DRUG POLICY

Beaufort County schools are to be commended for not adopting a drug testing
policy modeled after the Supreme Court's latest drug war exemption to the
Constitution. 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 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 Friday night will likely test clean
Monday morning. If you think students don't know this, think again. 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 drug education.

Robert Sharpe, Drug Policy Alliance, Arlington, Va.