School district drug policies

School district drug policies are measures that teachers and administrators of a school put into place in order to discourage drug use by students. Within the last twenty years, primary and secondary school drug and alcohol policies have become increasingly restrictive, using very severe methods of punishment. Some school districts have even gone as far as including student's behavior off campus and after school in their policy's jurisdiction.

The main issues of concern are:


 * 1) Student Civil Rights
 * 2) Student Privacy
 * 3) Suspension of Civil Rights on Campuses
 * 4) Involvement of Parents and Police

Urban school districts saw widespread implementation of comprehensive Drug and Alcohol policies starting in the mid-1980s. Although small town school districts have generally been slower to adopt these measures, teenage drug use has not spared rural and suburban schools either.

Pros and Cons of Drug Testing at Schools
There are many pros and cons in the school drug testing debate that is a hot topic of discussion in schools and amongst parents, teachers and students these days.

Some say that the main purpose of random school drug testing is not to catch kids using drugs, but to prevent them from ever using drugs, illegal or not.

On the other hand, students have become more adept at knowing the limitations of drug tests. The drug tests commonly used by school districts do not detect most of the drugs commonly used by students and that detectable drugs like alcohol and Ecstasy disappear from your system within hours.

Furthermore, non-medical prescription drug use by teens is dramatically on the rise and the often cheap drug tests used by schools cannot detect the vast majority of these chemically unique drugs.

Finally, there is a great concern that portraying drug testing as a cure-all vaccine to student drug use will reduce the urgency for parents to talk to their kids about alcohol and other drug abuse; thus, such programs may actually do far more harm than good in the long run.

Supreme Court Rulings
The Supreme Court ruled in 1995 (in Vernonia v. Acton) that schools could randomly test student athletes who are not suspected of drug use. The Court also stated that as school athletes routinely face mandatory physicals and other similar invasions of privacy, they have lower expectations of privacy than the average student. The Court specified that its decision should not be seen as a justification for further expansion of drug testing programs.

In 2002 (the Board of Education of Independent School District No. 92 of Pottawatomie County v. Earls) it was ruled in Supreme Court that all students who participate in voluntary activities, like cheerleading, band, or debate, could be subjected to random tests as well.

There are about 600 school districts in about 15,000 nationwide that use drug tests, according to officials from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. White House officials liken drug testing to programs that screen for tuberculosis or other diseases, and said students who test positive don't face criminal charges.

Case study
In late 2001, in small-town Ashland, Oregon, the Ashland School Board enacted a Drug and Alcohol Policy for leadership students that created a firestorm of controversy. The local Oregon ACLU had advocated on behalf of various students expelled by the Ashland School District for drug use in May 2001 at a national forensics tournament and rallied again to protect the students from an unconstitutional invasion of their privacy. This landmark battle for student’s rights was the first of many similar incidents across the country.

Students at Ashland Senior High School argued that their off campus behavior after school hours should have no effect on their academic standing. In a statement to the local press, Ashland Senior High School Student Body Co-President Brady Brim-DeForest said "Teaching kids not to use and abuse drugs and alcohol is a family thing. Ultimately, it's a student's own personal choice."

Eventually, the Code of Conduct was rewritten and the controversy led to a full scale re-evaluation of the School District's entire Drug and Alcohol Policy. In order to reach consensus however, a community committee was formed, which met consecutively for five months.

A significant point against the use of drug testing in schools is the Fifth Amendment; where providing a urine sample is providing evidence against oneself.

Case Study News Coverage


 * Daily Tidings (February 2002 Coverage)
 * Daily Tidings (January 2002 Coverage)
 * Daily Tidings (January 2002 Coverage)
 * Daily Tidings (January 2002 Coverage)
 * Daily Tidings (January 2002 Coverage)
 * Mail Tribune (January 2002 Coverage)
 * Mail Tribune (October 2001 Coverage) Article 1
 * Mail Tribune (October 2001 Coverage) Article 2
 * Daily Tidings (September 2001 Coverage)
 * Mail Tribune (September 2001 Coverage)
 * Mail Tribune (July 2001 Coverage) Article 1
 * Mail Tribune (July 2001 Coverage) Article 2