STUDENT DRUG TESTING RECEIVES A FAILING GRADE

Between the years 2003 and 2008, the U.S. Department of Education
awarded over $36 million in taxpayers' dollars to fund student drug
testing programs in public high schools, including those in Shasta
County. A study published last month in The Journal of Youth and
Adolescence reveals that this was not money well spent.

An international team of researchers from universities in the United
States, Israel and Australia assessed the impact of school drug
testing programs on a nationally representative sample of 943 high
school students.

Investigators reported that the imposition of random drug screening
programs failed to reduce males' self-reported use of alcohol,
tobacco or illicit drugs. Student drug testing programs were
associated with minor reductions in females' self-reported drug
history, but only among women who attended schools with "positive"
environments. By contrast, investigators found that the enactment of
drug testing programs in "negative" school environments was most
likely to be associated with "harmful effects on female youth."

The study's authors concluded: "The current research expands on
previous findings indicating that school drug testing does not in and
of itself deter substance use. [D]rug testing should not be
undertaken as a stand-alone substance prevention effort and that
improvements in school climate should be considered before
implementing drug testing."

The study's conclusions were hardly surprising. Despite claims that
student drug testing programs represent a potential "silver bullet"
in society's effort to reduce adolescent drug abuse, studies
evaluating the effectiveness of such programs have consistently
demonstrated the opposite.

In fact a 2010 Department of Education study found that federally
funded mandatory random student drug screening programs fail to
reduce rates of drug use among either the students tested or among
the student body at large. Drug testing "had no statistically
significant impacts" upon participants' substance use, the study
found. "For nonparticipants, there was no significant difference in
self-reported substance use between the treatment and control
schools," the authors added.

Similarly, a 2007 study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health
concluded that student drug testing programs do not reduce
self-reported drug use and may even encourage greater risk-taking
behaviors among those tested. Investigators from Oregon's Health &
Science University performed the two-year trial, which to date
remains the only prospective randomized clinical trial to assess the
deterrent effect of drug and alcohol testing among high school
athletes. Researchers found that students who underwent random drug
testing did not differ in their self-reported drug use compared to
students at neighboring schools who were not enrolled in drug testing
programs. Perhaps most disturbingly, researchers determined that
students subjected to random drug testing were more likely to report
an "increase in some risk factors for future substance use" compared
to students who attended schools without drug and alcohol testing.

Yet despite these programs' consistently poor performance, an
estimated one-quarter of public schools now engage in some form of
student drug testing program. They shouldn't be.

Random drug testing of students is an ineffective, humiliating,
invasive practice that undermines the relationships between pupils
and staff and runs contrary to the principles of due process. It
compels teens to potentially submit evidence against themselves and
forfeit their privacy rights as necessary requirements for attending
school. Rather than presuming our schoolchildren innocent of illicit
activity, drug testing without suspicion presumes them guilty until
they prove themselves innocent. Why are we continuing to send this
message to our children?