TESTING FRENZY

Drug War Idiocy

THE TECUMSEH SCHOOL District of Oklahoma doesn't have a documented
drug problem. Nevertheless, it has one of the strictest school
drug-testing policies in the United States-so strict, in fact, that
the Supreme Court will decide this spring whether it violates the
Constitution.

The district requires that high school students undergo drug tests if
they want to participate in any extracurricular activities, including
such well-known dens of drug-related vice as the choir and the quiz
team. Once students test clean, they also have to agree to random drug
testing throughout the year.

Heading up the dissent are 16-year-old Lacey Earls and American Civil
Liberties Union attorney Graham Boyd, who will argue the case in
Washington. Says Boyd, "Drug testing represents the wholesale
elimination of Fourth Amendment rights for all students that are
subjected to it," adding that about go percent of students participate
in after-- school activities.

The Supreme Court has visited the topic of student drug testing
before. In 1995, the justices ruled that an Oregon school, whose jocks
were reportedly using drugs and running amok, could test student
athletes. But Boyd is confident the court won't extend that ruling to
students in other after-school activities. Athletes, he will argue,
"uniquely waive their privacy expectations by agreeing to other
invasions of privacy," such as shared dressing rooms and physical exams.

While the Supreme Court teases out the legal issues, the Tecumseh
school board could use a good, strong hit of common sense: Kicking a
kid out of choir -or discouraging him from ever signing up-only gives
him more time to experiment in illegal extracurricular activities.