Drug Testing In Schools

[qwerty]

If found to be on illegal drugs, the child is not charged with a crime, but only enrolled in a rehab program. I support it.

[Alcon]

I'm all for anything that requires me to pee into a cup.

[7,052,770]

Absolutely NO suspicionless drug testing.

The tests are quite expensive and are easily fooled.  Simply add iodizing salts to the urine...false negative!  Also some false positives are possible, and from what I've read, only 90% of the results are negative.
It's also an invasion of privacy, as often an administrator stands in the room with the tested student to make sure he's not cheating.
It violates the trust of the student-teacher bond to say "hey I don't trust you not to be on drugs, so I'm going to MAKE you test yourself and prove you're not."
And finally, suspicionless drug testing is ineffective.  A University of Michigan study showed no difference in drug use among schools who have it and who don't.  Many organizations, includign the American Pediatric Society condemn suspicionless drug testing.
I hate to say that my own school has started such a money-wasting, trust-breaking, privacy-violating, and ineffective suspicionless drug testing system.

There's also the hypothesis that suspicionless drug testing can RAISE drug use rates by kicking one-time users of out extracirricular activites, which themselves ARE drug detterents (while drug testing is not), causing them to go deeper into drugs and introduce others into drugs.  However it's a hypothesis, but it is reasonable.

I did my bill at MS Youth Legislature a year ago banning suspicionless drug testing.  Of course if a student comes to shcool high or something, test him.  But drug-testing a student randomly is terrible and wasteful and must be stopped.

[A18]

I'm against it. Let parents worry about this stuff.

[??????????]

Harry if you eat poppyseeds you can test positive on a drug test. And you CAN be terminated from employment for it as their is no way to prove it actually came from the seeds or from some other opiate.

[John Dibble]

I think Harry and Philip pretty much sum things up well. It's expensive, wasteful, ineffective, and it's really something to be dealt with by the parents.

[??????????]

I think Harry and Philip pretty much sum things up well. It's expensive, wasteful, ineffective, and it's really something to be dealt with by the parents.

What if its a school sports team?

[John Dibble]

I think Harry and Philip pretty much sum things up well. It's expensive, wasteful, ineffective, and it's really something to be dealt with by the parents.

What if its a school sports team?

Well, keeping a certain GPA is usually required to stay in a sports team, and drug use will usually effect that. If you have enough reasonable doubt to warrant a test, fine, then test, but it takes too much time and money to test everyone.

And to answer your question with questions:

What if it's the band?
What if it's the science club?
What if it's the chess team?
What if it's the <insert extracarricular activity here>?

Drugs can affect all of those. Why is sports different?

[qwerty]

Dibble, when I was in high school I knew straight A students who were regular drug users.

[opebo]

Testing of anyone is an invasion of privacy.  Legalize it!

[John Dibble]

Dibble, when I was in high school I knew straight A students who were regular drug users.

First, let me guess - pot.

Second, if drugs are so bad, how did they stay straight A?

[Lunar]

No drug testing, suspicion or not.  Random drug testing is somewhere around what I'd classify as "evil"

[minionofmidas]

I read somewhere there's stuff you can legally buy and consume that'll ensure you'll produce a false positive - and it's bad on your health in the long run.

Drug Testing no matter where (well, maybe exempting champion athletes and drunk drivers) = Class War on the Poor.
Thank God that's illegal here.

[opebo]

I read somewhere there's stuff you can legally buy and consume that'll ensure you'll produce a false positive - and it's bad on your health in the long run.

Drug Testing no matter where (well, maybe exempting champion athletes and drunk drivers) = Class War on the Poor.
Thank God that's illegal here.

Its illegal in Germany?  Wow.. yet anther example of greater personal freedom in Europe.  You lucky people!

[gumbiegirl007]

having the school systems responsible for monitoring whether or not kids are doing drugs is completely ridiculous.  whatever happened to parents parenting their children?  there isn't funding for books or for technology, but we'll make all the kids pee in a cup to make sure they aren't doing drugs....just foolishness.  while getting kids into a rehab program is a respectable goal we need to be encouraging parents to be active participants in their children's lives. 

[7,052,770]

Here at my school, they test all clubs equally, and waste a LOT of money.  They also pull us out of class to test us and it's our own responsibility to make up the work.

[qwerty]

we need to be encouraging parents to be active participants in their children's lives. 

Yeah, that's gonna happen.

[minionofmidas]

I read somewhere there's stuff you can legally buy and consume that'll ensure you'll produce a false positive - and it's bad on your health in the long run.

False negative o/c. Sorry.

[minionofmidas]

Here at my school, they test all clubs equally, and waste a LOT of money.  They also pull us out of class to test us and it's our own responsibility to make up the work.

Now that's not something I can imagine happening in a Democracy. Seriously.

[opebo]

Here at my school, they test all clubs equally, and waste a LOT of money.  They also pull us out of class to test us and it's our own responsibility to make up the work.

Now that's not something I can imagine happening in a Democracy. Seriously.

It can happen when the majority of voters support curtailing personal rights and freedoms.  Democracy doesn't gaurantee anything - it just reflects the electorate, and we happen to have a bad one here. 

Obviously things would be much worse were it not for the undemocratic aspects of the Constitution - Bill of Rights, etc.

[minionofmidas]

Here at my school, they test all clubs equally, and waste a LOT of money.  They also pull us out of class to test us and it's our own responsibility to make up the work.

Now that's not something I can imagine happening in a Democracy. Seriously.

It can happen when the majority of voters support curtailing personal rights and freedoms.  Democracy doesn't gaurantee anything - it just reflects the electorate, and we happen to have a bad one here. 

Obviously things would be much worse were it not for the undemocratic aspects of the Constitution - Bill of Rights, etc.

Obviously your definition of Democracy is different from mine - I would never call the Bill of Rights an undemocratic aspect of the Constitution.
Indeed, the problem here seems to be that the Bill of Rights is outdated and insufficient, otherwise this would be unconstitutional.

[opebo]

Here at my school, they test all clubs equally, and waste a LOT of money.  They also pull us out of class to test us and it's our own responsibility to make up the work.

Now that's not something I can imagine happening in a Democracy. Seriously.

It can happen when the majority of voters support curtailing personal rights and freedoms.  Democracy doesn't gaurantee anything - it just reflects the electorate, and we happen to have a bad one here. 

Obviously things would be much worse were it not for the undemocratic aspects of the Constitution - Bill of Rights, etc.

Obviously your definition of Democracy is different from mine - I would never call the Bill of Rights an undemocratic aspect of the Constitution.
Indeed, the problem here seems to be that the Bill of Rights is outdated and insufficient, otherwise this would be unconstitutional.

The Bill of Rights limits what the majority and their representatives can do to the minority - even the individual.  It is a limitation upon democracy.

[minionofmidas]

If you define Democracy as Majority Rule, rather than as Majority Rule Within Certain Bounds Set by Agreement and Common Sense in Order to Protect the Minority's Liberty, yes.
Although note that most students can't vote, so a decision by lawmakers affecting only them is not going to be very Democratic no matter what.

[John Dibble]

How many times do I have to say this - we are NOT a democracy, we are a constitutional republic. Big difference.

[A18]

The Bill of Rights is completely ignored. It might as well be repealed.