MANDATORY DRUG TESTING SENDS WRONG MESSAGE

Narcotics trafficking is not an after-school pastime usually associated
with groups like the Future Homemakers of America, the marching band, and
the Hi-Q Team. But due to a recent Supreme Court decision, young people
involved in any of these activities are now under fire in the War on Drugs.

Last week, a 5-4 ruling against former Oklahoma honor student Lindsay Earls
gave school boards across the country the green light to subject their
students to mandatory drug testing as a condition of their involvement in
extra-curricular activities. The narrow decision denies 14 million
schoolchildren the Constitutional protections against "unreasonable search
and seizure" that shields most adult Americans from invasive testing
procedures.

The Supreme Court maintains that suspicionless drug testing targeting a
particular group of citizens is reasonable whenever they have a reduced
expectation of privacy, a special susceptibility to drug- related injuries,
or a heavy involvement in drug use. And high school students who
participate in extra-curricular activities apparently fall into this category.

Too bad the Court has been so inconsistent with its anti-drug message and
who it applies to: in 1997, the Supreme Court overturned a law that would
have required candidates for state office in Georgia to pass a drug test,
because it was merely a "symbolic" effort to eradicate drug use.

As symbolic, perhaps, as forcing a straight-A choir member to be tested for
drugs while neglecting to provide treatment for her at-risk peers who have
dropped out of school?

It is difficult to imagine that the drug-related injuries sustained at a
chess tournament are any greater than those sustained at a meeting of the
Georgia Legislature. But in view of the Supreme Court's criteria for
suspicionless testing, one would think that the average chess team member
is a "leader of the drug culture" prone to bouts of dangerous activity --
and that by forcing him to undergo a urinalysis monitored by familiar
teachers and coaches, America's drug problems will be solved.

The Court has chosen an interesting way to do battle on drugs.

No one can argue that drug abuse among young Americans is an increasingly
serious issue, but is it right to lash out against the group least likely
to use in the first place?

According to a 1995 study, high school students who weren't involved in
school-sponsored activities were 50 percent more likely to use drugs than
their more-involved peers. By the same token, drug testing has been shown
to deter at-risk or previously addicted students from participating in
activities that may help them get off drugs.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association,
and the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence are just a few
of the respected groups that challenged the court's ruling as a simplistic
and punitive solution to America's drug nightmare.

Drug use needs to be addressed with diagnosis and treatment -- not with
public ridicule, and certainly not through an unprovoked invasion of
privacy that would violate any teacher-student relationship based on trust
and mutual respect.