Washington, DC: NORML Foundation Executive Director Allen St. Pierre blasted a White House sponsored series of nationwide “Student Drug Testing Regional Summits,” noting that suspicionless student drug testing in schools is invasive and fails to curb adolescent drug use.
“Suspicionless student drug testing is a humiliating, invasive practice that runs contrary to the principles of due process,” St. Pierre said. “Rather than presuming our school children innocent of illicit activity – as statistically, the overwhelming majority of them are – until proven guilty, this policy presumes them guilty until they prove themselves innocent. Is this truly the message the Bush administration wishes to send America’s young people?”
St. Pierre further noted that the only federally-commissioned study to examine the effectiveness of student drug testing programs found the policy to have no discernible impact on youth drug use. According to the study of 76,000 students by the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research: “Drug testing of students in schools does not deter use. At each grade level studies – 8, 10, and 12 – the investigators found virtually identical rates of drug use in schools that have drug testing and the schools that do not.”
Despite this poor performance, approximately one out of five American secondary schools carry out some form of drug testing among its student population. Recently, President George Bush recommended Congress appropriate $25 million dollars to help additional schools pay for student drug testing programs.
The “Student Drug Testing Regional Summits,” which began this week in Chicago, IL and Fresno, CA are being sponsored to promote the Bush plan.
The final two summits, which are free to the public, take place in Atlanta, GA on March 25, and in Denver, CO on April 8, 2004.
For more information, please contact either Allen St. Pierre or Paul Armentano at (202) 483-5500. Summit scheduling information is available at:
http://www.cadca.org