Should Drug Testing Be Allowed in Schools?

Today's paper had an in-depth article about the fact that 25 teenagers have been murdered on our Peninsula since 2010. The last occurred late last week in York County, when an apparent drug deal went bad between a 17-year old of one high school and the 16-year old student of another, resulting in five shots through the victim's front. Three hit the victim, including one in the heart that killed him.

Sometimes in the aftermath of tragedy, citizens take the time to ponder the "what-ifs" and what-cans" to look for solutions. One which has been discussed for the past 25 years is the idea of random drug testing in schools. It's amazing how divided different school jurisdictions are on this topic.

I did look at this back in June, but in light of recent local events, wanted to open the topic for debate once again.

Please feel free to interject with any thoughts --- I will post all comments that stick to the subject...

One of the most controversial topics in today’s school law deals with the ability of a school to randomly drug test students. The debate goes back to the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which states:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons…against unreasonable searches…shall not be violated...”

When discussing the right to test students for drugs, there are several factors which immediately come into play. First and foremost is the fact that with the exception of rare individual cases, many drugs are still illegal in America, and certainly not allowed on school grounds, or at school events. However, this gets weighed against individuals’ rights, as stated in the Fourth Amendment, when discussing the option of drug testing in public schools. There are also matters of whom to test, the expense of conducting the testing, as well as the criteria for testing a student. Should a public school system spend the money necessary to randomly test all students, or should they reserve the right or cases where drug use is suspected. And how does one assess that a student is a candidate for drug testing. Also, is the school system financially stable enough to handle the lawsuits which will occur when students feel that their individual rights have been violated?

This last point is important. A cursory search of drug testing cases discovered a 2002 listing from the American Civil Liberties Union, which provided a synopsis for 22 drug testing cases, one (United States v. Martinez-Fuente, 428 U.S. 543) dating back to 1976. Fourteen of these cases deal specifically with testing students, and the decisions are mixed. Six found drug testing to be constitutional, while eight defended the Fourth Amendment, and withheld the students’ rights. …The debate is not new, and it is not going away.