TESTS COUNTERPRODUCTIVE

Re: your April 3 editorial, "Taking high school drug tests too far": Your
editorial was right on target. The U.S. Supreme Court will review an
Oklahoma school district's drug testing policy on constitutional grounds,
but there are compelling health reasons to oppose the invasive policy.
Student involvement in extracurricular activities has been shown to reduce
drug use. Forcing students to undergo degrading drug tests as a
prerequisite will only discourage such activities. Drug testing may also
compel smokers of relatively harmless marijuana to switch to harder drugs
to avoid testing positive. Despite a short-lived high, marijuana is the
only drug that stays in the human body long enough to make urinalysis a
deterrent.

Marijuana's organic metabolites are fat-soluble and can linger for weeks.
Synthetic drugs are water-soluble and exit the body quickly. A student who
takes Ecstasy, cocaine, heroin or meth on Friday night will likely test
clean on Monday morning. If you think students don't know this, think
again. Anyone capable of running a search on the Internet can find out how
to thwart a drug test. The most commonly abused drug is almost impossible
to detect with urinalysis. That drug is alcohol, and it takes far more
lives every year than all illegal drugs combined.

Instead of wasting money on counterproductive drug tests, schools should
invest in reality-based drug education.

- -- Robert Sharpe, Program officer, Drug Policy Alliance, Washington, D.C.