Why I’m Standing Up Against Random Drug Testing at My High School

Allie Brody is a senior at Allentown High School in New Jersey and is one student that has had enough of being treated like a criminal.

I’ve written for my school newspaper, helped out with the production of musicals and even traveled abroad through a school club.

I was later inducted into the French Honor Society and the National Honor Society. Last year, I even co-founded the school’s first philosophy club.

But this year I am barred from participating in any of it. The irony is that my school has made me ineligible for any extracurricular activity for what they believe is my own self-interest. What did I do to deserve this punishment? I acted on my principles and stood up for fairness, privacy and dignity for me and my fellow students.

Student drug testing for extracurricular activity was pushed by the Bush administration as the panacea for high school drug use. Besides, what would convince more kids to stop doing drugs than to give them more time to use them. Allie Brody decided to take action.

Last year, when I found out my school board was considering a random student drug-testing policy, I immediately began organizing a student opposition group.

We worked to get the community involved: Students joined with parents and teachers, donning “Drug Testing Fails Our Youth” T-shirts as we filed into the school board meetings. We even brought a toxicologist to speak with the board about the unreliable nature of the drug-testing technology, the problem of non-professionals interpreting the test results, privacy and legal-liability issues and the general lack of research supporting student drug testing.

To us it seemed the school’s arguments in favor of testing were based more on emotional rhetoric than data. But, in the end, emotion carried the day, and random student drug testing went forward.

Allie didn’t simply accept the schools drug testing policy, and neither should you. Despite being terrible policy, it’s a total waste of taxpayers dollars. It’s an ineffective way to combat drug use and Allie does a great job pointing it out in the post.

In a policy statement, the AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) cautions that student drug testing is unsupported by scientific research and carries inherent dangers. Drug-testing programs break down trust between students and administrators. They also carry the inherent danger of motivating some students to switch to drugs that will leave the system quickly, like alcohol, or drugs that not show up in the tests, such as inhalants and herbal concoctions.

I commend Allie Brody for both the principled stand on the drug testing issue and for the willingness to sacrifice for a closely held belief. We are lucky to have teens of Allie Brody’s character in America, and as a society we become stronger for it.

History is written by those who show up.  [And if I may add... Many of us have had the fantasy idea that if everyone just refused to take a pre-employment drug test, there would be no more pre-employment drug test, because there wouldn't be enough workforce. Alas, that is just a fantasy, because the reality of supporting families and mortgages comes into play.

But at a school... Imagine if every member of the football team or school band or drama club just outright refused to take the tests, what then? These are cases where the drug tester needs you much more than you need the drug tester. Imagine the headlines when John Hughes High School can't field a football team or a band or a play because kids finally had enough and stood up for privacy! They can't expel or suspend the kids for not going out for extracurriculars. The district will be paying the salary of a coach, a conductor, or a director with no students to teach. If everyone did it, there's no way to single out the "stoners" from the rest.

NORML does not at all support the use of marijuana by those under age eighteen except in medical circumstances as directed by a physician. But we do support the privacy rights of students not to be accused of being drug users for merely trying out for extracurriculars. C'mon, kids, show your elders a thing or two - just say no to school drug testing. --"R"R]

Related posts

• Is Home Drug Testing A Parental Necessity Or Overreaction? (3)
• Combining cocaine, alcohol, creates toxic cocaethylene stored in liver, blamed for heart attacks (6)
• California teens’ marijuana use steady, but prescription drug abuse skyrocketing (1)

New, easy at-home drug test may help parents | KATU.com – Portland, Oregon | News
PORTLAND, Ore. – Parents wanting to keep their kids drug free have a new option: a first-of-its-kind drug test that only requires a little hair.

Hairconfirm claims to be 99.9 percent accurate and tests for a wide variety of illegal and prescription drugs.

With just a small bit of hair – taken with or without a kids’ knowledge – parents can find out whether their child is taking drugs, the company says.

“You can see the frequency of abuse so you can find out if the person is an occasional user versus a medium user or on the very high addictive level,” said Zeynep Ilgaz, CEO of Confirm BioSciences.

Parent Kelly Bonnin likes the idea of such a test, saying there is already testing at his work.

“We have random drug testing, and why shouldn’t our kids,” he said. “That’s the future. They are our future, and we need to take care of them.”

The test sells for between $65 and $90. It is not in stores in the Portland-area yet but is available online.

That line from the parent – “we have random drug testing and why shouldn’t our kids” – sent a chill down my spine.  Do you really want to treat your kids the way your boss treats you, as a “human resource”, to be tested, evaluated, and spied upon?

The American Academy of Pediatrics is against home drug testing of your kids, because they say that testing creates a climate of “resentment, distrust and suspicion” among students, parents, and school administrators.

Also, these tests aren’t catching all drugs.  Their “regular” product tests for marijuana, cocaine, opiates, amphetamines, meth, ecstasy, and PCP.  A new product adds to the list Vicodin, Lortab, Oxycontin, Percocet, and Dilaudid.  Furthermore, they add this disclaimer:

PLEASE NOTE: In some cases, when the donor has used marijuana, a hair drug test, including HairConfirm, may be unable to detect the THC metabolite due to the fact that the metabolite was unable to bind with the hair shaft. This can be caused by the type/quality of the marijuana smoked/ingested, or by what it has been mixed with, e.g. tobacco. As a result, the result for marijuana may be negative.

So, kids, don’t use that marijuana by itself, roll it up with tobacco in a blunt!

Also, did you notice the conspicuous absence of alcohol, GHB, ketamine, and inhalants in that list?  Hey, kids, don’t smoke that relatively safe marijuana, it’ll show up on your parent drug test.  Try something that your folks can’t detect!  Sure, those drugs, especially the inhalants, can kill you quite easily, but at least you won’t be smoking pot.

Related posts

• Willamette Week | “Working Spliffs” (2)
• Want to chat live with “Radical” Russ at the Cannabis Café? (0)
• Tigard, Oregon cops used “marijuana for sex” prostitution sting (6)