Wow!  I just received a fax from McGraw Hill, the people who make college textbooks, among other publishing.  They happened on a piece I wrote for The Oregon Herald on 4/20/2005 (just two weeks before I met Madeline Martinez and started my career in marijuana law reform) entitled “Drug Testing Does No Good” and are asking my permission to reprint it in a college textbook entitled “Taking Sides: Clashing Views in Management” that will be published in August.  Yours truly even receives a fee!  For something I wrote and forgot about four years ago!  (Ain’t the intertubes wonderful?)

Here it is for your reading pleasure…

Recently, an RV manufacturing plant in Goshen, Indiana, made headlines because they had drug tested all 120 of their employees and found that nearly a third of them tested positive for some illicit substance.

What caused the company to drug test all of their employees? Was there a rash of accidents? Had productivity dropped significantly? Were there increasing incidents of absenteeism and illness? Did a supervisor notice any drug use occurring at the plant, or notice an employee obviously under the influence of drugs?

No. The only reason the plant spent the time, effort, and money to test their employees was due to a police tip that there was a drug problem at the plant. In other words, there was no reason for the company to believe they had a drug problem.

You would think that running a manufacturing plant with one third of your employees working under the influence would lead to some obvious problems. You’d be right. The problem is that a positive drug test does not indicate that a person is under the influence of drugs. It only indicates that a person has done drugs in the past.

Read the rest of this entry by clicking here

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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]

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Of 550 high school athletes drug-tested in Bullitt, one was positive | courier-journal | The Courier-Journal
Only one Bullitt County high school student tested positive for drugs last school year, though nearly 550 tests were given.

“It’s great news,” said Jaime Goldsmith, the district’s director of safe and drug-free schools. “It dispels some of those rumors that it’s running rampant.”

The urine tests screen for marijuana, amphetamines, steroids, ecstasy, hydrosol, PCP, methadone, barbiturates, benzodiaphine (such as Xanax), opiates, cocaine, propoxyphene (in painkillers such as Darvon) and alcohol.

The one positive test was for alcohol, Goldsmith said.

This year, all middle and high school students in the district will undergo drug tests if they play a sport or participate in a competitive extracurricular group. School board members voted to expand the testing program in March.

Parents whose children don’t play sports or participate in competitive activities can also have them tested by entering them into the “volunteer pool,” Goldsmith said.

There are penalties for testing positive. Students who fail the tests must sit out 20 percent of the season and pass another drug test before returning, Goldsmith said. After a second failure, the student must miss the whole season and be tested each month for a year.

Student who fail a third time are banned from competitive programs for the rest of their middle or high school careers.

Students who fail any tests also must undergo drug counseling.

Let’s see, one out of 550 tests positive, a drug test costs about $50 for that school district, so therefore that one positive drug test cost $27,500.  Meanwhile, we’ve got teachers being forced to reach into their own pockets to buy paper and pencils for their students.  How many school supplies could you buy with $27,500?

Studies show that getting your kid into extra-curricular activities is one of the best ways to keep them away from using drugs.  So if a kid fails a drug test, the idea is to get them out of their extra-curricular activities?

What about the kid who may be smoking pot but may also want to join the football team.  He knows that pot stays in your system for a long time, so even if he quits, he might test positive and face that embarrassment.  So why bother trying out for the team at all?

Note also the one positive test was for alcohol.  Kids know that alcohol can’t be detected after just a couple of days, but marijuana can be detected for weeks.  So given the choice of dangerous alcohol vs. mild marijuana, these drug tests motivate them to pick the more dangerous drug.  (Same goes for most of the drugs you’re testing for – they fade within a couple of days – not to mention the drugs you’re not testing for, like huffing glue or solvents.)

Finally, it’s not the kid who’s trying out for debate team or the basketball squad who has the substance abuse problem, it’s the kid who always shows up late to first period or is frequently absent.  So pat yourself on the back all you want, Mr. Goldsmith, for there not being a drug problem “running rampant” among your star athletes and gifted students, but those tests say nothing about the majority of students in your school who do not participate in extra-curricular activities.

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