DRUG TESTS

They're No Way To Encourage Students

There's some irony in Thursday's U.S. Supreme Court ruling that public
schools can drug-test students as a condition for participating in
competitive extracurricular activities, such as the debating team. Students
inclined to invest time in such efforts would seem the least likely to be
druggies.

"The best way to prevent drug use is to involve them in extracurricular
activities," said Graham Boyd, the ACLU lawyer who argued the case for an
Oklahoma high school student who objected to giving a urine sample so she
could join an academic quiz team. Her test was negative, but the student, a
self-described "Goody Two-shoes" saw it as humiliating, accusatory and an
unwarranted invasion of privacy.

The ruling expands on a 1995 high court decision that high school athletes
could be subjected to drug testing because they have less expectation of
privacy than students at large. Students in serious physical activity could
also be hurt if they are under the influence of drugs.

The latest decision does not require schools to drug-test the Future Farmers
Club, but empowers them to do so. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that testing
was "a reasonably effective means of addressing the school district's
legitimate concerns" about drugs.

Implicit in the ruling is a lack of faith in all those "just say no"
campaigns. Testing is a way to catch kids who are using and punish them for
it. The prospect of testing may discourage drug use, but it also discourages
the occasional user from joining an activity that could make a healthy
difference in a young life. It further alienates young people by making them
all suspects on the basis of age, a form of profiling.

School districts should think carefully about using this new power to search
without suspicion.