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Drug Testing in Schools Essay

Updated August 13, 2022
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Drug Testing in Schools Essay essay

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Imagine going to school and taking a drug test, you are a person who would not take drugs if your life depended on it, and your test comes back positive. You are suspended from school and you cannot attend your senior homecoming or prom. The controversy that surrounds drug testing is the legality of the issue, and whether the rights of the student are being infringed upon or not. There are many arguments for both sides of this topic. Drug testing in schools is unconstitutional, it is not the most effective way of dealing with drug problems, and drug testing can provide inaccurate results to innocent students. Drug testing students makes students feel very uncomfortable and distrusted by the school faculty.

Randomly drug testing students is against their fourth amendement right to unlawful search and seizure. “A student who is not suspected of wrongdoing to provide a urine sample, is a unwarrented invasion of privacy” (Boyd). Graham Boyd is an attorney at the ACLU which is the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU goes to court for individual people’s rights. The ACLU has been apart of a major court case on this topic, The ACLU won this case purely based on the fact that drug testing was against students fourth amendement right. Drug testing is against students individual human rights and that is exactly what the ACLU tries to get rid of in the schools who do drug test.

The fourth amendement in the constituion states that “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause…” (Amendement IV). Drug testing students who do not participate in any sports should not be drug tested. Drug testing athletes has a reason behind it, athletes could be partaking in cheating. Drug testing students who do not participate in any sport realated activites should not be allowed unless there is probable cause. Probable cause is the only reason that students should be drug tested outside of being active in sports because unless the school has evidence that the student is a drug abuser then they are going against the students constitutional rights. Athletes who are being drug tested is not a violation of constitutinal rights because athletes could be using PEDs (Performance Enhancing Drugs).

Students who do not partake in any activity, club or even drive and park at the school. Students like these have no reason to be drug tested because they have not signed some sort of agreement that they are willing to be randomly drug tested. In James Kozlowski’s article he talks about how “students who participate in sports or extracirrcular activities submit themselves to a drug test while students who do not particpate in any sports or clubs have no right to be drug tested” (Kozlawski 36). Drug testing is not only against students 4th amendment right but also is not the most effective way of trying to deter srudnets to get off drugs.

Drug Testing is not the most effective way of dealing with students who have drug problems. Drug testing students is a bad way of doing things for students who actually have drug abuse problems. “Fewer than 10% of students who fail drug tests do not recieve any treatment” (Knopf 3). Allison Knopf in her article “Pediatricians Oppose School Drug Tests, Call for Counseling.” She talks about how kids who fail drug tests in school should not be punished for their actions but should be able to go and get help from a place of rehabilition. Schools treating students who are known drug abusers to counseling could help students rather than punishing them for failing a drug test.

Naomi Arnold stated in her article “To test or not to test” comments that “Drugs are a leading cause of students missing out on schooling. Nationally, Ministry of Education statistics show
that, in 2014, drug use was the second- most common reason both for suspensions (23.7 percent) and exclusions (16 percent), but it was the main reason for expulsions, accounting for 26.7 percent of cases. A failed drug test should not result in suspension but intervention.Meaning that if a student fails a drug test they should not be punished by the school but, the school should be trying to help with the problem. “Students who face punishment by the school and do not recieve treatment are more likely to go back to their drug using ways” (Levy 1115). Students do not feel very safe with schools drug testing methods.

Drug testing students make students feel untrusted by the staff of the school. A student from a school in Texas stated that “Drug testing gives me an uncomfortable sort of feeling, it makes me feel like I am a criminal and that I am untrusted by the teachers and staff that I have built strong healthy realtionships with over the years of my high school career”(Levy 1107). This student does not approve of schools drug testing because if you fail a drug test it could break some great relationships with some of his favorite teacher which have turned out to be some of his best friends. Students who do have drug problems and their schools start drug testing should seek some help with some drug counseling and rehabilition sevices.

Schools should consider to send the students with drug abuse problems and rather than punishing them, they should send them into rehabilition. “Using limited resources to provide advice, counseling, and even on-site treatment of adolescents could both serve a preventive role and increase the number of adolescents who have their substance use disorders addressed and ultimately have a larger effect on reducing student drug use than drug testing alone” (Levy 1114). Drug testing does not help students with actual drug abuse problems. Drug rehablition treatments could help the students deter away from their ways of abusing drugs. Drug testing can also provide false results for innocent students.

Drug testing can provide inaccurate results for students who do not use drugs. Drug testing in schools who do not have a lot of money could result in many false positives resulting in convincting innocent students who do not use any sort of drugs (Woods). False positives could punish students up to suspension for a student who could have never tried a drug in their entire life. False positives could be a detrement to a students who is trying to get into a very high education of schooling and possibly ruin their career that they wished to continue after high school.In Gregory Fritz’s journal “The Debate Over Drug Testing in Schools.” he states that “ Critics argue that in the absence of better evidence, the millions of dollars spent on random testing could be better spent on prevention or treatment programs that have proven efficancy” ( Fritz 8).

Fritz talks about how drug testing in school districts cost lots of money only for the drug tests to not have a lot of positive test results. Most school policies have no rule against students doing drugs in their free time they only have rules against being under the influence of drugs during schools hours. Drug testing does not inform the faculty that the student is under the influence during the time of the drug test it only shows that the student has done drugs recently. The schools do not have any policies on what students do in their free time so drug testing is just trying to get the troubled students in trouble even if they are not under the influence during school hours.

Drug tests that come back as a false positive could result in a student sueing the school district for wrongly convincting them. Another way of keeping students off of drugs is by keeping the school in a positive environment. By surrounding students with a positive nature and buliding healthy relationships with them could have students less likely to try and experiment with drugs or alcohol. Schools that bring students a positive environment would not even have to use drug testing because students would feel comfortable with their surrounding inside of the school. In David Heitz’s article “Pediatricians Say No to Random Drug Testing” he states that “ There are additional concerns about privacy, whether screeners are looking for the right drugs with the tests they use, and the harmful ways children might try to get around the screens” (Heitz).

A drug test resulting in a falser positive can end up in a suspension of school and if a student who is trying to get into a very prestigous school, all of that can be ruined just by a mess up of the drug test panels. Imagine that you are a straight-A student and you get called down for drug testing one afternoon and you are wrongly convicted of using a hard drug such as cocaine. That prestigous school will no longer want you at their school and the career that you have chosen to pursue will no longer be available because they do not want anyone that uses drugs in that school or field of work.

People may argue that drug testing in school is the best way to get students to stop and scare students away from drugs based on the fact that they will recieve punishment for getting a positive drug test. Drug testing students will have students so focused on the drug testing that they will stop using drugs because they are scared that they will recieve punishment from the school and their parents. Parents will also feel safer to have their children attend schools who drug test so their children do not end up with the wrong crowd and start experimenting with drugs and alcohol.

Drug testing may be a good way of getting students to not do drugs, but their are many other effective ways of doing that. One example of deterring students off of drugs is keeping the students in a positive environment. By keeping the students in apositive environment and building strong relationships with teachers and faculty can effect students in a way that they would like coming to school everyday. Another example of a way of getting students off of drugs is setting the students up that are known for drug abuse with a counseling service that could help them rehabilitate them and their families.

In Cheng Cheri’s article “Drug Testing in Schools is Ineffective.” She conducted a survey of 361 students that all went to a school who randomly drug test and Cheri stated that “Students who attended schools with drug testing were no less likely to try marijuana or cigarettes than other students who went to schools without drug testing” (Cheri). By giving known drug abusers counseling services could lead to other students with drug problems going to these counseling services trying to get help. These examples are more effective than drug testing based on the fact that students have stated that drug testing makes students very uncomfortable and feel untrusted by the school.

Drug testing in a school environment goes against students fourth amendment right to unlawful search and seizure, There are many other ways that you can get students to get off of drugs other than randomly drug testing them and punishing them for postivie test results. Drug testing can provide false positives and wrongly accuse innocent students and punish them up to a suspension in which the student could have never tried drugs in their entire life. Drug testing makes students feel uncomfortable in school and could possibly lead to students dropping grades because they feel untrusted by the school staff and faculty.

Drug testing can negatively affect your school life and possibly steer you away from your dream career with one false positive. Students who are drug users or abusers, a suggestion that if you would like to stop the path of using drugs and try to get a better life. A suggestion would be that, to try and find some help at a rehabilitation or conseling center.

Works Cited

  1. Arnold, Naomi. “To Test or Not To Test.” Matters of Substance. May 2016, www.drugfoundation.org.nz/matters-of-substance/may-2016/to-test-or-not-to-test/.
  2. Boyd, Graham, “Why Student Drug Testing Does Not Work.” American Civil Liberties Union. 2018, www.aclu.org/other/why-student-drug-testing-does-not-work.
  3. Cheng, Cheri. “Drug Testing in Schools is Ineffective.” Drugs/Therapy, 13, Jan. 2014, https://www.counselheal.com/articles/8262/20140113/drug-testing-in-schools-is-ineffective.htm
  4. Fritz, Gregory K. “The Debate Over Drug Testing in Schools.” Brown University and Adolescent Behavior Letter, vol.22, no.3, Mar. 2006, p.8.
  5. Heitz, David. “Pediatricians Say No to Random Drug Testing in Schools.” Health News. 30 March 2015, www.healthlive.com/health-news/.
  6. Knopf, Allison. “Pediatricians Oppose School Drug Tests, Call for Counseling.” Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Weekly, vol. 27, no. 14, 19 April 2007, pp.3-5.
  7. Kozlowski, James. “ Random Drug Test Requires Identifiable Drug Abuse Problem.” Law Review, vol.36, no.7, Jul. 2006, pp.24-30.
  8. Lacey,Ryan. “THE K12 DRUG TESTING DILEMMA.” District Administration, vol.52, no.12, Dec. 2016, pp. 63-65.
  9. Levy, Sharon. “Adolescent Drug Testing Policies In Schools.” American Academy of Pediatrics, vol.135, no.4, 4 April 2015, pp. 1107-14.
  10. US Constitution, Amendment IV, Section 3.
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