NORML Assails The Procedure As “Humiliating, Invasive, And Contrary To The Laws Of A Free Society”
Washington, DC: Federal legislation has been introduced that seeks to appropriate $25 million to establish random student drug testing of high school students. Representatives John Peterson (R-PA), Tom Osborne (R-NE) and Mark Souder (R-IN) introduced the bill (H.R. 3720), entitled the “Empowering Parents and Teachers for a Drug-Free Education Act of 2004,” just days after President George Bush claimed during his State of the Union address that “drug testing in our schools has proven to be an effective part of this effort” to reduce the demand for illegal drugs.
NORML Foundation Executive Director Allen St. Pierre criticized the proposal and said that President Bush is wrong to assert that student drug testing deters drug use. “Suspicionless student drug testing is a humiliating, invasive practice that runs contrary to the laws of a free society where citizens are assumed innocent until proven guilty,” he said. “In addition, federal research shows that drug testing in schools does not reduce or discourage student drug use.”
According to the findings of a federal study of 76,000 students by the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research, there is no difference in illegal drug use among students in schools that drug test versus those that do not. “Among the eighth-, 10th-, and 12th-grade students surveyed in this study, school drug testing was not associated with either the prevalence or the frequency of student marijuana use, or of other illicit drug use,” researchers found. “Nor was drug testing of athletes associated with lower-than-average marijuana and other illicit drug use by high school male athletes. Even among those who identified themselves as fairly experienced marijuana users, drug testing was not associated with either the prevalence or the frequency of marijuana or other illicit drug use.
“… [The] results suggest that drug testing in schools may not provide the panacea for reducing student drug use that some (including some on the Supreme Court) had hoped.”
In the past decade, the US Supreme Court has ruled that warrantless drug testing of student athletes as well as students who participate in non-athletic, extracurricular activities is constitutional. The Court has not ruled on the legality of a policy mandating drug testing for all public school students.
For more information, please contact either Allen St. Pierre or Paul Armentano of the NORML Foundation at (202) 483-5500. For more information on H.R. 3720, please visit NORML’s website at:
http://capwiz.com/norml2/issues/alert/?alertid=4977051
Full text of the 2003 University of Michigan study is available online at:
http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/pubs/text/ryldjpom03.pdf