The War on Drugs... in Our Schools.

When I hear the phrase, "pee in the cup", I immediately think of my trips to the pediatrician's office, in which I empty out a urine sample in the privacy of a closed bathroom. Contrary to my immediate thoughts about this phrase, many other high school students associate this phrase with random drug testing in school. Veronia School District v. Acton and Board of Education v. Earls are both U.S. Supreme Court cases that deal with the issue of student drug testing. Both cases require mandatory drug testing for athletes and/or students involved in school extracurricular activities. The cases argue the idea that with school athletics and extracurriculars, there is an "unwritten" norm of privacy already violated: sharing rooms on trips, locker room changes, showering, etc. The cases also go on to argue that random and mandatory drug tests in season are necessary in order to prevent a strong(er) drug problem in the school environment. Personally, I love the idea of these drug testings, as they do promote the values of the school environment. However, I feel that this is the wrong approach. Morally, I feel that illegal drug use is inappropriate, and that it makes a person weak. However, I cannot avoid the reality of drug use that exists in our society today. I do not know what the perfect solution is to this drug problem, but I know that this solution will not benefit our society. It will only continue to push this issue, and to be honest, it may annoy many students. If the star quarter back of a football team gets kicked out of a game for drug use, that will ruin it for the whole team. If the lead in a musical is booted out before opening night, than the whole show is ruined unless there is an understudy. Therefore, I feel that required drug testing for students involved in athletics and/or student activities is a waste of time and money. 


Besides these two court cases, I also explored the issue of strip-searching in a school environment. In an article that I recently read, 13 year old eighth  grade student, Savanna Redding, was stripped searched for illegal drug use due to a tip from a fellow classmate. The entire article can be found here. Overall, this is completely inappropriate. The strip search of a young student is completely inappropriate, and equivalent to prison. If the standards of a school search have now reached those of a prison environment, than the school environment is now corrupt. A school should feel like a safe environment, and that value was contradicted in this search. However, an appropriate response to this "drug tip" would have been a dog search. A "drug detecting" dog could have sniffed around Redding, and thus saving her dignity. In fact, many drug-sniffing dogs have started to make visits at local high schools. According to a recent article about this topic, found here, "The point isn’t so much to make arrests as it is to just make it as hard as possible for anyone to bring drugs into school" (Clark). Reports have shown that drug presence in school has decreased since these drug-sniffing dogs have made a mark on the school with their random searches. Many think that this disrupts the school learning environment, but I feel that it is necessary in order to ensure a safe school environment. I am in favor of this system because it scares students away from the idea of bring drugs to school, with a fear of getting caught. I feel that drug-sniffing dogs have are the most reasonable way to combat the drug problems of our school systems.