Random Drug Testing in Texas Schools
The Houston Chronicle is reporting that several Texas schools are going to start random drug testing for students. Bradley Clark of the Texas Law Blog has a post agreeing with the practice:
"If you choose to experiment with drugs, there will be consequences - just like in the "real world." Drugs are a major problem among our youth and it is about time we do something about it."
I spent around 20 plus years of my life in school, more time than I have spent outside. I can assure you that school is the real world, and the lives and rights of students are not simply relevant to their parents. This criminalization of drug use (not even abuse) seems to be a major problem, perhaps even more than the drugs themselves. Unless there is some good science that I haven't heard of on this issue showing that random drug testing will actually prevent bad things, this is just a political game.
As for me, I don't think random testing is the product of people who are concerned with the health or well-being of their children, I think it is the result of fear and a desire to cleanse the schools of undesirable people. If you push people out of the schools, they will not develop into productive individuals. Instead, they will develop or enhance antisocial behavior, which will make it much more likely that I will be looking at them through a Plexiglas plate telling them how many years they can expect from the judge.
On the other hand, this is just like a regular social problem. The dumb kids will get caught; the smart ones will go to law school regardless of what drugs they had done (or were doing currently). So to all the kids in Texas schools that have this...good luck.
Monday, August 16, 2004
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Houston Chronicle: "Steve London, whose son is a senior in the Katy school district, said the testing will help prevent drug use."
What qualifies Mr. London to make this assertion? Even the school district’s spokesman, Mr. Stanford, offers the claim with no supporting evidence other than the assumptions that fear of getting caught will act as a deterrence to drug use and those caught will cease their use/abuse. But is there empirical evidence of this? Is there any evidence whatsoever? Or do these men rely on so-called “common sense” as the linch-pin to their case?
Arlen: "Unless there is some good science that I haven't heard of on this issue showing that random drug testing will actually prevent bad things, this is just a political game."
Absolutely. Furthermore, I would take issue with Mr. Stanford's assertion that "If [they] can help one student get off drugs, then that is worth it." Can he show that there is a compelling benefit to be derived from this program that would outweigh the resulting harm (loss of rights by the students)? Does helping one student get off drugs justify the reduced liberty of the countless other students? If not, what is the threshold at which the benefits do outweigh the harms, and can he show that there is a reasonable chance that the program would be this effective?
Mr. Clark comments at Texas Law Blog: "If you choose to experiment with drugs, there will be consequences - just like in the "real world."
This is disingenuous - in the "real world" (whatever that means; I assume he means the "adult world" or some other such invented place) there are certainly consequences to drug use. Thanks to the fact that we have a government founded in liberty, however, the invasion of privacy and the absence of due process that is inherent in such random drug testing schemes are not in that array of consequences. Perhaps Mr. Clark agrees with Mr. Stanford’s assertion that helping one student get off drugs is a compelling governmental interest and outweighs the rights of the individual?
I concur with Arlen that "I don't think random testing is the product of people who are concerned with the health or well-being of their children." After all, what evidence is there that this random drug testing will serve as an effective deterrent? Furthermore, are we so simple a people that the best way we can think of preventing drug use/abuse is threat of punishment? What is the probability that instituting this program will (a) provide a false sense of accomplishment and (b) divert resources away from developing more effective programs aimed not at punishment but at prevention?
Count me in the unconvinced. This program seems to me to be another ploy for school administrators to promote a false solution for a problem that they do not understand, and an excuse for those who seek to limit our freedoms under the guise of “the public good.”
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