Student Drug Testing

[annuin]

CNN.com article

Now they're championing a program where schools can randomly start testing kids for drugs. Now while I understand they test the kids on the school sports teams, for obvious reasons, the fact that they want to expand this to other extra-curricular activities like band and yearbook, and eventually to regular students in general, scares me. How doing drugs would really improve your participation in either yearbook or band is beyond me at that. It's privacy invasion on a large scale.

That said I already disagree with the drug testing stuff they do here for jobs. Yes I'm all for it when you're talking about a job in which the person is responsible for other people (bus driver) or heavy machinery or something that would put others at risk of danger, but not when you're talking about a dead end job filling racks at walmart. You wouldn't even get away with that kind of privacy invasion where I come from.

Big Brother is watching You.

Comments

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

What's worse is that any kid who tests positive is probably going to be forced into one of those pointless rehab programmes where they'll end up ditching the weed because it shows up in tests for 30 days and taking up something else that doesn't show up. Was it speed that doesn't show up? I dunno.

But, while I realise that teachers are at risk from violence from some kids, and that drugs pose a serious discipline problem in large schools (imagine keeping discipline in a high school of over a thousand kids), it still doesn't seem like the best way to go about things.

Most of the continuing War on Drugs is all about making a potentially bad situation exponentially worse.

Re:

[darktor.livejournal.com]

Hrmmmm if they think drugs are a problem, imagine a school filled with kids going though withdrawal....

Re:

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

Oooh, no. See, schools don't have to worry about that - a kid tests positive, s/he gets dumped into a seperate system for "rehab". Mother Jones had a great (scary) article on this a while back: http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2000/02/rehab.html

Re:

[tanthe.livejournal.com]

Aside from that, most of the kids are on recreational drugs that aren't addictive in quite the same way that things like crack/cocaine and heroine and such are. If they're on anything, my guess would be that they're using XTC/E or marijuana, or possibly prescription drugs, because I know a few people sell theirs in school >_<

Either way, much as I wouldn't want any kids of mine doing drugs, I don't think drugtesting at school is the way to go, nor do I welcome that kind of invasion of privacy. If my kid is on the school sports team, test away... other than that, stay the fuck away from him/her.

[funeralnight.livejournal.com]

They already invade our privacy by monitoring us through that thing called "Big Brother" or "Matrix" or whatever it's called. At least here in Michigan.

Re:

[tanthe.livejournal.com]

Which does what exactly?