DRUG TESTING WILL HELP OUR YOUNGSTERS

I'm glad to hear the discussion about the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on
drug testing students who participate in extracurricular activities. As a
school counselor in the Coeur d'Alene school district, my opinions on the
matter have gone back and forth until the past few years, when I began to
take a closer look at the drug, alcohol and tobacco prevention research
from District 271.

Since 1989, substance abuse has gone down in every area with the students
in our local secondary schools. With support from the Department of
Education's Safe and Drug Free School funds, we have been able to identify
use patterns at various grade levels, and we have designed and implemented
a variety of prevention programs.

One school-based prevention program that has shown positive results is
Idaho Drug Free Youth. This program began about 10 years ago when students
who were drug- and alcohol-free noticed that the students who used
substances received more attention for using than nonusers did for being
drug-free. The only way these students believed they could prove that they
were substance-free was to take a drug test. In the past 10 years, 200
businesses in Idaho have rewarded thousands of students with discount cards
to reward drug-free students for making healthy choices to be drug-free.

Together, the research and the drug-free students agree that drug testing
is a positive attempt to encourage nonuse and a tangible way to measure the
effectiveness of all the other prevention programs.

Greg P. Johnson

Prevention/Intervention Specialist