Student drug testing expands Federal funds available to increase screening

Maine public school students dreaming of glory on the

hockey rink, basketball court or track this year could face an additional hurdle come September: stepped-up random screening for drug use.

And it’s not just student athletes who may be called on to pee in a cup; recently expanded federal guidelines now allow school officials to make the same demand of any student participating in any school-sponsored extracurricular activity: math team, band, chess club, drama team, Spanish club and other nonsport programs.

The Bush administration’s Office of National Drug Control Policy and the U.S. Department of Education announced last week the availability of $10 million nationally to school districts that want to implement a program of random drug screening along with assessment, intervention and referral for treatment. Next year, the office hopes to have $25 million to support such programs.

With “reasonable suspicion,” school officials may search students’ lockers or backpacks for drugs or alcohol, and many Maine coaches ask for random urine samples to make sure their athletes are “clean” and healthy enough to play sports. Federal law dictates that schools may not have a policy of testing the entire student body randomly, but a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision expanded the scope of schools’ permissible drug testing to include not only athletes but any sub-population of students, including teams of any sort, language clubs, hobby groups, even those lucky kids who get to drive themselves to school.

“We’re just trying to help local [school] districts find an effective way to deter drug use,” said Brian Blake, special assistant to ONDCP director John Walters. “It’s just common sense that if you’re afraid you’ll get caught using drugs, you’ll think twice before you use them.

“This is not a way to bust kids,” Blake stressed Tuesday. “There’s no law enforcement involved.” Nor will ONDCP have access to any data identifying the students that run afoul of the testing plan, he said.

Kim Johnson, director of Maine’s Office of Substance Abuse, said Tuesday that the new program puts too much emphasis on testing students and not enough on preventing substance abuse in the first place or on making sure teens and their families get access to appropriate treatment once they’ve been identified. And, while school urine test kits can determine recent use of marijuana, cocaine and opioids such as heroin or OxyContin, they don’t test for alcohol, still the No. 1 drug of choice for most teen users.

“ONDCP has been talking about this new testing initiative for about a year now,” Johnson said. “They think it will deter kids from using because they’re afraid they’ll get caught, and they say the kids who don’t use will feel safer. I don’t think it does either one.” Johnson said her strongest reservation is that random screening is humiliating and violates teens’ rights.

Johnson said there is wide consensus among Maine education and public health officials that increased school drug testing is not desirable. But, she said, there is nothing to prevent an individual school district from applying for the ONDCP funds and implementing as stringent a program as that district desires.

Safe and Drug-Free Schools, another federally funded program with a state-level office, has developed a strong prevention and treatment strategy, Johnson said, along with an effective anti-violence message, but President Bush’s proposed budget axed the program altogether. The U.S. Senate budget has restored partial funding, but the measure still faces opposition in the House.

At the Maine Civil Liberties Union, staff attorney Zachary Heiden said Wednesday that the organization would be concerned if Maine schools were to conduct widespread random drug tests on specific student groups. Aside from potential infringement of personal freedoms, Heiden said random testing has been shown in many studies to be ineffective at deterring teens from using drugs.

“One thing that has been clearly shown to reduce drug use is active involvement in after-school extracurricular programs,” Heiden said. “This seems like a poor use of federal funds.”

Efforts to reach Susan Gendron, Maine’s education commissioner, for comments on potential drug testing were unsuccessful.