Governors Urged To Conduct School Drug Testing October 10, 2003
News Summary
During an anti-drug summit with New England governors in Boston, Mass., John Walters, director of the White House Office of Drug Control Policy, urged state leaders to implement random drug testing in schools, the Boston Herald reported Oct. 9.Walters said school drug testing is necessary to discourage drug use among young people. Currently, the New England region is facing a heroin epidemic.
"This is a silver bullet," Walters told the governors. "I know this is a tool that will make a difference."
According to Walters, New England has more people ages 12 and older who are dependent on illegal drugs than any other region in the United States.
While local educators and addiction specialists say random drug testing in schools has merit, they also see some problems.
"If you are testing for drugs, what are you testing for?" said Dr. Punyamurtula Kishore, an addiction medicine specialist who runs a chain of addiction clinics in Massachusetts. "Are you going to test for smoking and drinking too?"
Kishore also cited the expense involved, with urine tests costing about $200 a sample and saliva tests even more.
Nancy Murray of the Massachusetts chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union cited numerous legal concerns.
"It really does run roughshod over the notion of individualized suspicion," Murray said.
She added that most educators can spot ongoing drug use in students by observing changes in student behavior.
According to Murray, drug testing is "just putting the emphasis in the wrong place. We don't need our schools to be more like prisons."
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