Parents, Students, Others Debate High-School Drug Testing
February 26th, 2007 Posted by: Dr. Cox
About 12 percent of U.S. schools now drug-test students, and another 10 percent are reportedly considering doing so. But the policy still generates plenty of controversy and debate, NBC News reported Sept. 10.
Springfield, Mo., parent Maryellen Stratmann believes that drug testing at her son’s Catholic high school “might help identify a teen who needs help. We also think it makes the campus a safer place, since drugs can interfere with an individual’s ability to make good decisions.”
But Sharon Levy, director of the Adolescent Substance Abuse Program at Children’s Hospital Boston, said, “I’m a firm believer kids shouldn’t be using drugs, but I don’t think drug testing is giving people the information they think it is. I hear people talk about drug testing as if it’s a pregnancy test. People think it’s the simplest thing — pee in a cup and run the test and it says yes or no.”
Levy said drug testing has many shortcomings, such as the fact that it does not detect all drugs and won’t spot drug use from more than a few days past. Plus, the tests can be influenced or tampered with by students, she said. “Just drinking two half-liter bottles of plain water will dilute the urine so much that it’ll drive … substances below detection level,” she said.
Judith Kirkwood of Fitchburg, Wis., a member of the parent advisory board of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, said drug testing can be counterproductive. “My son was using marijuana regularly by eighth grade and went on to cocaine, crack and heroin,” she said. “I know my son was able to use other kids’ urine for random drug screens at a credentialed medical lab.
“You literally have to have your eyes glued to kids’ private areas in order to ensure a clean screen, and I just don’t think our schools are equipped to perform the tests or that parents would accept that kind of scrutiny, and they shouldn’t.”
But Don Stewart, superintendent of Penn Manor School District in Lancaster County, Penn., is content with his district’s decision to test students randomly. “I like [drug testing] because it says we are willing to do all it can to prevent kids from throwing away their lives with drug use,” he said.