The Lee County school board is considering whether to impose random drug tests on its entire upper level student body as a way to deter teen drug use. The proposed tests would be given regardless of reasonable suspicion and would extend to all students in middle and high school. School board members intend to decide on the issue before the next school year.
“I think there is a [drug] problem,” board member Pat Riley told the Fort Myers News Press. “When I mention it to students, they jokingly say: ‘There goes the whole basketball team, or the whole football team.’ I don’t think that’s funny.”
Lee County school officials note that the schools already undergo random searches by drug dogs of students’ lockers, although few drugs have been found. Nevertheless, Superintendent Bobbie D’Alessandro states that results of a survey of 5,000 Lee County high school students demonstrate that there is a drug problem.
For more information on student drug testing, please contact either Allen St. Pierre or Paul Armentano of NORML at (202) 483-5500.