DRUG TESTING PROTECTS STUDENTS FROM HARM

GREEN BAY - The U.S. Supreme Court recently held we have an "epidemic of
drug use" among school children and student drug testing is an effective
means of preventing, deterring and detecting drug use.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently decided Board of Education v. Earls, a case
on whether a school's interest in deterring students from using drugs by
the use of random drug testing outweighed the privacy interest of the
students. The court decided in favor of the schools and parents who want
their children to be drug-free.

When drugs invade a school, threatening the safety of students and
disturbing the orderly learning environment, the school's interest in
ridding the school of drugs outweighs the privacy interests of students.

The school years are a critical passage in a young person's life. While in
school, children face the challenge of learning in the academic, social,
physical and emotional realms. When drugs infect a school, it cripples the
learning process. Children become casualties. The physical and
psychological effects of drug and alcohol use can cause lifelong and
profound losses. Substance use decreases a child's chances of graduation
and academic success.

Researchers continually report statistics demonstrating student drug and
alcohol use is at a dangerous level. For example, the National Center on
Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University reports, for the last
six years, school children have listed drugs as the most important problem
they face.

According to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association,
students who use drugs are more likely to bring guns and knives to school,
leading to school violence. Schools must be allowed to use all reasonable
means to combat drug and alcohol use if education is to be successful and
our schools are to be safe. Drug testing deters drug use and gives students
a reason to say "no" when their peers ask them to use drugs.

Angela Heim