Much controversy surrounds student drug testing.
Student drug use ranges from experimentation to full-blown addiction. Parents and schools have been fighting student drug use for years, often with little success. Some suggest that drug testing students decreases and even deters drug use, while others believe this is an inappropriate and ineffective solution. There is much debate surrounding the topic of drug testing students, with little consensus other than acknowledgment of the issue. There are a number of pros and cons related to this hot topic.
Monitoring Behavior
One positive outcome of student drug testing is the ability to effectively monitor when drug experimentation or usage occurs. Regular drug testing allows parents and others to quickly pinpoint time periods of use and the specific drugs being used. Timely interventions and treatments can then be established, and tailored to student needs, increasing the likelihood of abstinence.
Accurate Assessment of Use
Accurate assessment of drug use is essential to understanding student usage behavior, and to developing effective treatment and intervention programs. Frequent drug testing provides researchers, parents and school officials and others more data to understand student drug use. Other assessments of drug use, such as surveys, rely on user recall to target when and where drug use occurred. With regular testing practitioners can better understand drug usage, patterns and behaviors.
Violation of Privacy
Perhaps the strongest argument against drug testing of students is student expectation to privacy. While the Supreme Court has ruled that schools can test a students in special circumstances, such as involvement in extracurricular activities, random testing outside of these instances is prohibited. For most school administrators and others, the violation of student civil liberties outweighs the public health issue of drug use and addiction.
Cost and Time
Drug testing is done in many forms, from urinalysis to blood testing. Some types of testing only detect certain types of drugs. Comprehensive drug testing, especially on large numbers of students, is time-consuming and expensive. Many school systems are already struggling to provide students with quality teachers and resources, and do not have the extra budget or staff to handle a drug testing program. Implementing drug testing programs in our nation's schools would put a severe strain on our already suffering school systems.
Tags: drug testing, drug testing, student drug, drug testing students, testing students, school systems, student drug testing
