BECAUSE WE CARE: STUDENT DRUG TESTING

Our view: The Supreme Court ruling allowing even student chess players to
be tested for drugs is a welcome opportunity to help kids avoid the
life-threatening hazards posed by drugs.

Among adults' more challenging but critical responsibilities is finding
ways to keep kids from screwing up their lives. To that end, parents
theoretically violate all kinds of civil rights. Been doing it for
generations, as parents rightly invoke - "For their own good."

And so we must.

It is with that obligation in mind that we find the Supreme Court's recent
drug-testing decision much less troubling than the sky-is- falling civil
libertarian bunch. The 5-4 ruling declared constitutional a Tecumseh, Okla.
high school policy that requires students involved in competitive
extra-curricular activities - from chess players to cheer leaders - to
submit to drug tests. Previously, only student athletes could be compelled
to take the tests.

By allowing the broadest latitude yet to test kids whom authorities have no
particular reason to suspect of wrongdoing, the court affirmed that
schools' interest in ridding their campuses of drugs outweighs students'
right to privacy.

We have no argument with that. Neither do several of the students and
coaches we talked to.

"A lot of things are invasions of privacy," said Pennsbury softball player
Meghan Sinback. "This also is an invasion of privacy, but it's a good one."

She's right.

So is her coach.

"If we can nip some problems in the bud, then it's worth any invasion of
privacy," said Frank McSherry. "It's an effort to help them."

Scholastic drug testing programs nationwide have indeed helped, a fact
noted by the Supreme Court justices in explaining their decision. In nearby
Flemington, N.J., for example, drug use among high school seniors at
Hunterdon Central High dropped 52 percent in the two years since athletes
have been tested for drugs. That, according to a student survey.

Such results should ease the civic concerns of parents overmatched by all
sorts of wicked influences, from the morally challenged entertainment
industry to age-old peer pressure. And for those in need of a legal
lynchpin to clear their conscience, there is this reasoned argument:
Students who engage in competitive extra-curricular activities voluntarily
represent the school and therefore have a lower expectation of privacy than
students at large.

But from a strictly common sense perspective, parents should have no qualms
with the decision because - if they're doing their job - children have not
been granted broad rights to privacy in the home. Indeed, closets, drawers,
backpacks should not be off limits to parents. From our perspective,
parental responsibility trumps kids' rights every time - for their own good.