IS THIS THE ANSWER TO DRUG USE?

Hackettstown, N.J.

KRISTIN SOMERS was sitting in her 10th-grade English class at
Hackettstown High last year when a call came over the intercom
telling her to report to the office. Immediately.

An honors student with a 3.8 average here in northwestern New Jersey,
she wasn't being summoned to discuss her academic performance. And
while she participates in an array of after-school organizations -
from soccer and softball to the National Honor Society and Key Club -
the issue wasn't her extracurricular activities or future plans.

She was instructed, instead, to go to the nurse's office, where she
was led into a bathroom and told to urinate into a plastic cup so
officials could test for recent illicit drug use.

"It was a little odd," said Kristin, now 17, who blushed as she
recounted the story. "But it was over pretty quick. And I was back in
class in, like, 10 minutes."

For middle and high school students in about 1,000 districts across
the country, including about two dozen in New Jersey, random drug
tests have become routine, like pop quizzes for a student's body. The
increase in screening began after the United States Supreme Court
ruled in 2002 that schools could test students participating in
extracurricular activities. Students are screened for marijuana,
cocaine, amphetamines and an assortment of other narcotics, and a
growing number of districts are now looking to use urine tests to
determine whether students have drunk alcohol, including outside school.

If they have, parents are notified and students are barred from
school activities until they receive counseling. Test results are
confidential and are not included on disciplinary records.

State education officials in New York said that there are no public
school districts in Westchester or on Long Island that use random
testing. "I simply don't recall anyone ever bringing it up," said
Janet Walker, executive director of the Westchester-Putnam School
Boards Association.

Tom Murphy, a spokesman for Connecticut's Department of Education,
said public schools have no random drug-testing programs.

But Ginger Katz, whose son, Ian, died of a heroin overdose in 1996,
shortly after he graduated from high school in Norwalk, said she
wished more schools would adopt testing.

"He loved his sports," said Ms. Katz, who started a foundation, The
Courage to Speak, after her son's death. "He wouldn't have risked
losing the right to participate by smoking marijuana on the weekends."

Both supporters and opponents agree that New Jersey has been quicker
to adopt random testing than other states. Two years ago, the state
became the first to authorize random screening for steroids of any
high school athlete whose team qualified for postseason play.

Administrators say the tests help improve both school safety and
public health by discouraging drug use among some troubled youngsters
during school hours and by giving students a reason to resist peer
pressure outside school.

But despite the steady increase in random testing, recent studies
have raised doubts about whether it actually works. Several teachers'
unions and organizations and medical groups like the American Academy
of Pediatrics oppose random tests, saying they undermine the trust
between students and school officials without offering help to those
most at risk. And some parents view them as a blatant invasion of
privacy because they measure drug use, and in some cases, alcohol
use, that took place days earlier. Some drug tests can measure drug
use that took place months earlier.

Still, federal officials say an average of one school a month around
the country has added testing programs in the past several years. And
a handful of schools, like Middletown and Pequannock Township High
School in Pompton Plains, N.J., have begun using a more sensitive
test that, administrators say, can detect on Monday whether a student
drank beer at a party the previous Friday night. Even to students
like Kristin Somers, who passed her drug test and supports screening
programs, such scrutiny seems intimidating.

"If they tested for alcohol at our school," she said, "there'd be an uprising."

THE relatively muted resistance to drug-screening programs thus far
is just one indication of the sharp shift in public attitudes since
Nancy Reagan galvanized the antidrug movement with the mantra "just
say no." In the past two decades, several Supreme Court rulings have
allowed screening in progressively wider swaths of society, expanding
from the military to the criminal justice system to the workplace to
professional sports and, finally, to public schools.

The first school testing programs began in the 1990s, and their use
spread more quickly in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, which
made many Americans more willing to sacrifice privacy for the
prospect of more security. In 2002, a Supreme Court ruling found that
mandatory tests were permissible, as long as they weren't linked to a
student's right to academic instruction. Since then, most schools
have made the tests "voluntary" by making them a requirement for
students who want to participate in extracurricular activities or
receive other privileges, like using the school parking lot.

Dr. Bertha Madras, deputy director of demand reduction for the White
House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said that in her
travels around the country, she has found that an overwhelming number
of students and parents now embrace testing as a tool to help monitor
students. Dr. Madras spent years researching the long-term damage of
drugs and alcohol in the still-developing adolescent brain. She has
come to view testing as a kind of preventive medicine.

"The goal isn't to punish students," Dr. Madras said at a recent
seminar with school administrators in New Jersey. "We're trying to
change behavior, and parents appreciate that."

Even staunch opponents of screening concede that schools should be
able to test any student suspected of being intoxicated on campus.

But civil liberties advocates say schools have no business trying to
usurp a parent's right to regulate behavior outside school.

"The desire to protect students from the dangers of alcohol or other
drugs is understandable," said Ed Barocas, legal director of the
American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey. "But sometimes this
concern takes on a zeal that ignores other legitimate concerns, such
as whether it intrudes on family privacy."

William Sciambi, who successfully organized the fight to prevent the
Delaware Valley School District in Hunterdon County, N.J., from
beginning a testing program, said he was offended by the prospect of
school officials usurping his responsibility to monitor his
children's behavior. Mr. Sciambi said he talks openly with his
children about drug and alcohol use in hopes of teaching them to make
responsible choices.

So, in 2004, when he learned that his district was considering a
testing program, Mr. Sciambi organized a campaign with a few dozen
other parents who have twice persuaded the school board not to begin screening.

If anyone at school tried to give his children urine tests, "they'd
have to put me in jail," said Mr. Sciambi, whose son is 12 and
daughter is 15. "Because I'd go down there and raise hell."

Advocates of testing say they've tried to address those concerns by
designing programs to be as discreet and clinical as possible. David
G. Evans, a lawyer who has helped several New Jersey districts set up
programs, concedes that the tests are invasive. But he said the court
decisions that permit testing are a triumph of common sense, because
they give educators one more tool to fight drugs.

At most schools with testing programs, students who want to
participate in extracurricular activities must agree to random
screening, and parents must sign a consent form. The school assures
them that the process will be confidential. Tests that show signs of
drugs or alcohol are described merely as "non-negative" and sent to a
lab for more testing. If that test shows evidence of drug or alcohol
use, parents are notified and students are forbidden to participate
in the activity. They are not allowed to resume until they have
received counseling inside or outside school, devised a treatment
plan to avoid drugs and alcohol and passed a subsequent drug test.

School officials say they never publicly disclose test results or
allow them to appear on permanent records that might affect a college
application.

"Sometimes the other kids can figure out why someone would miss two
weeks of baseball or drama club," said Lisa A. Brady, superintendent
of South Hunterdon Regional High School in Lambertville, N.J., who
developed one of the nation's first random drug testing policies.
"That's a consequence every student has to think about."

At Pequannock, which has New Jersey's most stringent testing policy,
a computer program randomly selects students to be tested. And
administrators say they try to personalize the process. John Graf, a
former teacher who runs the testing program at both the high school
and middle school, says he tries not to disrupt academic classes and
usually takes students only from gym class, lunch or study hall.

As he escorts them to the nurse's office, Mr. Graf explains the
procedure and reassures them that even if their test shows use of a
prescription drug or false positive, it will be double-checked.

"Just those few words usually helps them relax a lot," Mr. Graf said.

At the nursing office, tests are performed by a medical technician,
Bobbi Jo Murphy, who lives in the district and knows many of the
families. Even she can't avoid some alienating moments: when students
go into the bathroom, the water is turned off, to prevent anyone from
diluting a urine sample or using the tap to heat drug-free urine that
was smuggled in. "There's a temperature strip on the container, and I
can feel whether it's the right body temperature; I can also tell by
the smell," she said, demonstrating with two sniffs of an empty vial.
"If it doesn't smell like ammonia, it's not a fresh sample."

Principal William H. Trusheim of Pequannock Valley Middle School said
parent feedback was overwhelmingly positive. At the high school, 75
percent of the 800 students have signed up for the program, which
includes a test for ethyl glucuronide, which stays in the bloodstream
for up to four days after alcohol consumption. The middle school,
which does not use that test, has about 80 percent of its 600
students in the program.

About 20 percent of the students in the pool are tested annually. The
annual costs range from $12,000 to $40,000. At Pequannock, a $120,000
federal grant is covering the cost of the tests and the additional
staff for the next three years. Many of the other schools have also
received federal funds.

"The district started this after a student died of an overdose," Dr.
Trusheim said. "I think most parents realize it's a tool to help them."

Things haven't gone smoothly everywhere. In December, at Melvin H.
Kreps Middle School in East Windsor, N.J., an eighth grader, Bobby
Raymond, arrived at the lunch room late and was stopped by a teacher
who thought he appeared anxious. Bobby, then 13, was escorted to the
nurse's office and ordered to take a drug test. His parents were
called, and after telling school officials not to test him, they
hurried to the school.

"We said: 'You're not doing this to our son. You're not putting him
through this,' " Dorothy Raymond said. "We got there and were banging
on the nurse's door office for three minutes, but they wouldn't let
us in. Finally when they opened it Bobby sees us and gives me a hug.
He said they poured his urine sample down the drain. And after all of
that they told him he'd passed the test."

But testing advocates say random drug screens can minimize such incidents.

For all the effort and the $1.7 million in federal financing for the
programs, it is unclear whether they actually dissuade students from
drinking and taking drugs. In surveys, administrators say the
programs are working. In most districts only about 1 percent of all
tests find evidence of drugs or alcohol, and schools argue that the
low rate proves the tests are a deterrent.

But the largest study, by the University of Michigan in 2003, found
no evidence that testing lowered the abuse rate. The federally
financed study examined 90,000 students at 900 schools nationwide and
found virtually identical rates in schools that tested and those that did not.

The Drug Policy Alliance, which lobbies for less punitive narcotics
laws, has tried to persuade school administrators to adopt other
strategies, like counseling and drug education.

"Those are the kids who need help, who need to be brought into the
school community, and they're being punished and pushed aside," said
Jennifer Kern, a research associate for the Drug Policy Alliance.

Ms. Kern said the money used for screening, about $42 a test, could
be redirected to provide additional treatment programs or hire more
teachers and counselors.

The White House is offering financing and legal assistance to
districts that start testing programs. Many students have simply
accepted the tests but some say they have concerns.

At New Jersey's Middletown High School North, where school officials
test for both alcohol and drugs, Erin Castle, 17, a junior, said she
supported the testing until her younger sister, a freshman, was
picked from the student pool. "She was upset with it," said Erin,
whose sister's test was negative. "And I felt violated for her. It's
an invasion of her privacy."

Kyle Hartman, 18, a senior who is editor of the school newspaper,
said some students had talked about keeping a clean urine sample in
their lockers while others believed that herbal teas would mask any
trace of drugs or alcohol.

Christopher Lauth was a sophomore at Hackettstown when the school
began testing three years ago, and he and many other students found
it annoying.

"There were some kids who just switched to drinking," said Mr. Lauth,
now a college freshman in Florida. "And some kids drank to rebel,
because they were upset about the tests. Kind of like, 'Oh yeah?
We'll show you!' "

Greg Lane, a Hackettstown junior, said he was one of many students
unhappy about the program when it began, but had come to support it.
But, he said, it is still common at after-school parties to see
students smoking marijuana alongside those drinking from the kegs of beer.

"The kids who are doing drugs aren't always the ones you would
suspect," he said. "It could be people involved in student government
or cheerleaders. But the ones who are going to do it are going to do
it no matter what."

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SCHOOL DRUG TESTS

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