BAD KIDS?

Maybe Fear And Memories Are Influencing School Drug Policies

It's likely that the Supreme Court will uphold an Oklahoma school district
policy that requires all students who participate in extracurricular
activities to pass a drug test.

The constitutional question at issue (whether protections against
unreasonable search and seizure apply to students) is an important one, but
the case raises another concern: The proliferation of policies that assume
all students are drug addicts, murderers and miscreants.

Said Justice Anthony Kennedy to the lawyer representing a high school
student who objected to the drug testing, "No parent would send their child
to a druggie school -- other than perhaps your client."

Besides being downright nasty, Kennedy's statement presumes that schools
that don't routinely conduct drug tests are "druggie schools." This belies
national statistics that find that nearly 60 percent of high school seniors
haven't used drugs during the past year.

In fact, for the fifth year in a row, drug use among students has remained
stable or decreased, and drug use is down significantly from the high in
1979, when 54 percent of students reported using drugs during the past year.

So, what's at the root of the perception that schools are crammed full of
druggies?

The media is partially to blame. Studies of teen drug use are often
reported without thoughtful analysis of long-term trends.

Parental memory may also play a role. Drug use among high school students
peaked between 1976 and 1980. Perhaps today's parents and school board
members are remembering their own behavior (or that of their friends) when
they support drug test policies.

That's fine -- except when these policies throw a shadow over the millions
of teens who are responsible citizens, good students and caring children.