The Choice Channel

Among the recent activities of our nation’s Drug Czar is pushing school districts to adopt a random drug testing policy for all students. ONDCP offers $125,000 grants to help with the costs involved. This is not just the sports participants, as in the past, but ALL students.

Adding to a huge tome listing unintended consequences related to our War on People (sorry, Drugs) this is but another example. You see, most of our youth who experiment with drugs have done so with marijuana, which has been proven in many studies (some actually authorized by ONDCP - the 1999 National Institute of Health study comes to mind) to be the least harmful of all the illegal drugs. Not being as unenlightened as many think, most of them understand that marijuana use is detectable in their systems for nearly a month. On the other hand, other illegal drugs - the ones that can actually be abused and cause addiction - are usually gone from one’s system within 72 hours.

Think about it - if one wants to play around with these substances and learns of a random testing policy, what could one do to minimize the risk of getting caught? Do the hard stuff, ya think?

There is a glimmer of hope in this dark scenario - Washington State’s constitution. Therein resides a stricter definition of legal authority for conducting such a test on anyone - actual grounds for suspecting drug use, not just feeling that we have a drug problem. A random testing policy for students participating in sports activities in a Southwest Washington school district in 1999 prompted a lawsuit based on the Washington State constitution.

Finally making a ruling on the case last week, the Washington Supreme Court found such testing - of any students - unconstitutional in the state. According to The Seattle Times, Justice Richard Sanders wrote, We cannot countenance random searches of public school student athletes (under the Washington Constitution). We require a warrant except for rare occasions which we jealously and narrowly guard. The decision effectively stops random drug testing for all schools in Washington State.

The school district, whose random testing prompted the lawsuit and the resulting court decision? They say they will have to change plans if they can’t continue random testing. An official there said, We’ll have to put our heads together and take a look at what we can do to help kids make good decisions.

Really? Here is one of the most maddening parts. The district in question had received a four-year, $587,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education to cover the costs of testing. The Department of Education! Not the office of the Drug Czar - the Department of EDUCATION!

To further the travesty, the district said they had tested about 500 students over the past two years and found that about 10 (that’s about a whole 2%) tested positive for drugs or alcohol!

Wellllll….say hallelujah and pass the mustard, folks! That means that taxpayers from around the country gave a single school district in Washington state $293,500 to test 500 students to find maybe ten (maybe 2%) who tested positive for drugs or alcohol. Some of their students imbibe on the way to school?

Well, Lake Stevens school district - since someone up there has the common sense to figure things out (your state Supreme Court), maybe you should put your heads together to find a way to help kids make good decisions. That way, at some time in the future, maybe none of them will waste nearly $300,000 of taxpayer’s assets finding virtual needles in haystacks.

Originally published at the LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) blog March 30, 2008.