DAILY BEAST COLUMN: Random drug tests violate students’ privacy and may make them more likely to switch from pot to harder stuff…
Schools generally aren’t allowed to drug test the entire student body without probable cause—that would violate the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures. But in 2002, the Supreme Court ruled in Board of Education v. Earls that administrators can mandate drug-testing as a condition of involvement in after-school sports and clubs…
It’s not difficult to imagine some students embracing their inner libertarian and sitting out extracurricular activities instead of subjecting themselves to intrusive searches that certainly violate the spirit of the Fourth Amendment, if not the actual Bill of Rights… (more)
EDITOR: Half a century ago, the problem was teenage drinking of beer. Getting drunk is a lot more dangerous than getting high because it often leads to drunken driving and aggressive behavior.
Because marijuana is detectable up to two weeks while traces of other drugs quickly disappear, drug testing pushes youngster to escalate to hard drugs
It is fear of being caught, not a natural progression as suggested by the long debunked “Gateway Theory” that encourages youngsters to move on to dangerous drugs.
Drug testing not only endangers our youngsters, but indeed teaches them that society has little regard for individual privacy rights.
We parents suffer great anxiety about teenagers drinking beer or smoking pot. It is a credit to us that we worry about our youngsters. The only sound approach is to educate them to the facts. An excellent reference source is Drug War Facts, which consists solely of government and peer reviewed information with links to all sources.
Talk sense to youngsters, not drivel. It works better.
As a father of five spanning ages from 16 to 48, we have been there and we do that. And yes, we worry. That comes with parenthood!
” Talk sense to youngsters, not drivel. It works better.”
This is the absolute truth. When, in the 70’s, I saw kids smoking pot without getting flashbacks or going crazy as in the movie Reefer Madness it was a quick conclusion that the government line was crap.
Maybe if we admitted that marijuana is not worse than a martini, but heroin will likely kill you we’d be better off.