Drug Tests! Get Your Drug Tests!

By Mary Ought Six

The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) held its annual Regional Drug Testing Summit February 27th in Newark, NJ. The central discussion at the yearly summit: How best to deter the country’s young minds from drug experimentation? The conclusion: Through increased monitoring of students’ urine followed by penalties for positive results - which usually means exclusion from the extra-curricular activities that can keep kids out of trouble after school.

Random drug testing has been a controversial component of the drug war since slipping into America’s workplace in the late 80s; the industry has boomed over the last twenty years, expanding its authority over employment, and making its way into government institutions, jails, rehabilitation centers, and, more recently, schools.

Opening remarks for this year’s conference by Bertha K. Madras, Ph.D., Deputy Director, Demand Reduction ONDCP, were accompanied by data in support of drug testing. Flowcharts demonstrated a decrease of positive test results in schools that had implemented programs. In one example, a New Jersey school went from having two kids test positive for marijuana one year to having only one positive test the following year.

Madras, smiling tersely but tenderly at her audience - made up mostly of school representatives either looking to beef up their current drug testing program or considering implementing a program at their school, wrapped up her statements by saying “We will hear from many of our expert speakers on how to start a program, how to collect data, consult legal council, enlist community support, develop a policy... We will also learn how to fund a testing program; there are so many venues.”

It suddenly became apparent that I was attending a trade show. Of course it’s a trade show. Twenty-five years ago, drug testing virtually didn’t exist in the United States; today it is a six billion dollar industry. The ONDCP Summit is that industry’s yearly meet and greet.

“Implementation” and, surprisingly, “Cheap Deal” were two of the key ideas of the day. During the six hours of speakers, including a three-person panel, the consistent running themes were the defense of random drug testing and how inexpensive putting together a program really is.

Executive Director for Drug Free Schools Coalition, David Evans, Esq., elaborated on the need to defend and justify random testing, pointing out, “A drug test is a search, it’s a search of your bodily fluids.”

This, however, is a touchy subject for drug test crusaders and privacy rights activists alike, though at this show, a few of the former openly suggested that they would like to see entire schools tested, leaving anything random about the process behind.

Dona Witmer, the mother of two high school students in Penn Manor, Pennsylvania attended the conference as a concerned parent. Last October, while volunteering at a school activity, Witmer noticed mini cameras being installed in the student parking lot and school hallways. After confirming her suspicions that the cameras were to be used for student monitoring, she became an active voice in her community for student rights.

Witmer told HIGH TIMES, “It’s a privacy thing; they film [students] who drive in, walk in the hallway; they’re monitoring the pee. It’s getting to be like in George Orwell, where soon we’ll have cameras in our living rooms. I feel like we’re indoctrinating our children to the ‘New World’ where there is no privacy.”

So when is drug testing appropriate? Doug McVay, Director of Common Sense for Drug Policy and editor of Drug War Facts, thinks probable cause testing is as far as it should go, “I can understand schools having the right to do for-cause testing for alcohol and other drugs, but these urine testing programs only make it more likely that kids who try a substance will end up using alcohol, LSD, or mushrooms,” McVay said, pointing to substances not likely to show up in a standard urine test, “they don’t stop youthful experimentation.”