Editorial Response

DON'T WASTE EFFORTS ON STUDENT DRUG TESTING

I respectfully disagree with your July 7 editorial. Student involvement in
extracurricular 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 such 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 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 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 reality-based drug education.

Robert Sharpe

Program Officer, Drug Policy Alliance

Washington, D.C.