A proposal to mandate enrollment in a drug testing program by public school students is not just a massive infringement on a basic right against self-incrimination, AND a presumption of guilt, it’s the worst instance I’ve ever seen of government basically stepping in and saying “I can parent better than you can.” Every parent in that school district should not only be offended, but they should be utterly repulsed at the notion. [PP, "Aberdeen Schools to Drug Test All Students? There's That Nagging 'Nanny State' Problem Again," SDWC, 2007.09.03]
Drug testing won't stop teen drug use any more than abortion bans stop abortions (though PP and I might disagree there). If kids are using illegal drugs, it's not because we haven't passed strict enough rules, presumed our kids guilty until proven innocent, or invaded their privacy more often. Something deeper has broken down, something that has to be fixed by families and friends, by real social and cultural bonds, not by school district policy or erosion of the Constitution.
As an educator, do you feel the breakdown of the family unit is causing children to reach out to drugs and alcohol in an effort to soothe or replace what they're not getting from home? Over half the kids in school today are from broken, sometimes very unhappy families. That has to contribute to a child's need to be accepted, even if it is with the wrong crowd. I feel student activities are an area that participation should be a priviledge, so I would not oppose mandatory drug testing. If there's nothing to hide, why worry about it?
ReplyDeleteOnce again. Nothing has been decided.
ReplyDeleteFirst, the main issue: student activities are a privilege, an add-on to the core educational mission of the schools. Students accept additional training rules to participate; there is precedent and a stronger case for drug-testing in that situation than for the entire student population as a condition of school attendance.
ReplyDelete"If there's nothing to hide, why worry about it?" I can't buy that. Privacy -- freedom from an unwarranted search -- is a fundamental Constitutional principle. We don't have to prove our innocence; the government has to prove our guilt. I haven't built any bombs or forged any passports lately, but I still won't support letting the police do random house searches to check for terrorist activity. I have nothing to hide, but police don't get to come in my house unless they have a warrant or they hear gunshots. I don't do drugs -- I don't even take aspirin -- but I don't take kindly to being forced to provide a urine sample. Even with nothing to hide, I still value my privacy.
We already limit kids' rights compared to adults', sometimes too much; mandatory drug testing goes too far in teaching kids the wrong message about how government and the legal system should work. We can't catch every criminal; there comes a point where the infringements we make on everyone's civil liberties outweigh the marginal benefits of catching a few more lawbreakers.
Now, on to Anon's opening question, an interesting one at that. In the classroom, I felt that I and my colleagues were being asked to do a lot of parenting that would have been done better at home but that, for one reason or another, hadn't been done.
Broken families are an obvious problem. Grow up with only one parent because of divorce, crime, addiction, or irresponsibility, and you're more likely to have problems. But we can't put the blame on broken families alone. There are kids who grow up with one parent who are perfectly polite, intelligent, and ready for college and career success. There are kids from "unbroken" families who are holy terrors. There are happily married couples who host beer parties for their kids.
We also need to consider some other social and economic factors. Even if a nuclear family sticks together, our economy has driven us to be more mobile, less rooted. Mom and Dad may love each other, but they may have moved a thousand miles away from the extended family just to get a better-paying job. Kids may have Mom and Dad, but they lack Grandma and Grandpa, cousins, etc. who can provide them additional support.
We also live in a state that has the highest percentage of two-income families in the nation. Mom and Dad may be together, but they may not be home for the kids, since they're busy working two or more jobs to pay the bills. Kids with two parents may still spend more waking time in daycare and school, with hired caretakers and peers, than with adults who guide and love them unconditionally.
Sure, kids turn to drugs and alcohol because something is missing from their lives. They want to fit in, and what they've been offered so far -- love from parents, positive impression of their community, hope for the future -- isn't enough to keep them from turning to chemical means to fit in. But again, the desire to drink or dope up comes from cultural forces much larger than drug-testing alone can solve.
To put it in kids' terms, if your life sucks enough that getting wasted feels like an improvement, the additional suckiness of failing a drug test won't make things that much worse. If Mom doens't love you, or Dad doesn't come hone at night, the principal making you pee in a cup won't make your life any better.
Ah! Anon, you got me thinking and reading, and I found an interesting article on broken families and social policy that's worth a separate post. Thanks! Enjoy!
Several reasons for substance use/abuse among young people have been cited in the above posts: breakdown of the family unit, the need for acceptance, lack of support from extended family, economic hardships, and social/cultural factors.
ReplyDeleteThis anonymi comes from a stable family unit, was raised by strict but loving parents, has encountered little in the way of economic privation, and has gone on to become a successful and motivated graduate student. And yet… this anon has used drugs regularly for the past several years, which includes high school. This anon thus feels uniquely qualified to tackle some issues here. While this anon’s drugs are limited to those which leap from mother nature’s offering basket (and believe me, alcohol is significantly worse than any of those), that is not the norm. First of all, young teens these days are abusing synthetic drugs at a disturbing rate. (See http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-06-12-teens-pharm-drugs_x.htm) Most teens do not consider prescription drugs that they can find in their parents’ medicine cabinets to be dangerous. While prescription drug abuse is not new, the complacency with which this problem has been met is disheartening. Would drug testing help combat prescription drug use among high school teens? Probably not. Drug tests are meant to detect dreaded illicit substances like cocaine and (oh no!) marijuana. If traces of pharmaceuticals turn up in a drug test, chances are it would simply be shrugged off by both parents and students. (“Little Suzie had a backache, so she took some of my Vicodin.”) So, in this case, drug testing would not be a deterrent to kids who think prescription drugs are harmless anyway.
The second point I’d like to bring up is the idea of economic hardships and disrupted family units. These factors, while they may help to explain the statistics that one might see in, say, an urban neighborhood, do not address the growing substance abuse problems among wealthy kids who come from stable, upper middle-class families. Take, for example, the recent heroin “epidemic” in Northfield, MN. (http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/07/04/heroin/)
These kids were essentially targeted by dealers from larger cities that found a new, untapped market in the pocketbooks and souls of these young people. Reports of heroin use in Northfield prompted a “Not my little sweetie! He/she would never do something like that!” response from parents. As it turns out, over a hundred kids in this well-to-do college town were on heroin and many were sent to rehab. Would drug testing have prevented this situation? Again, probably not. Unless the academic/disciplinary consequences are great enough to outweigh a life-shattering buzz, kids will do what they will do. Besides, what greater consequence can exist besides a nasty heroin habit that’s harder to kick than a fifty-yard field goal?
It seems to this anon that the ultimate goal of mandatory drug testing should be prevention, but it really comes down to a gross infringement of everyone’s civil liberties in order to catch kids after the fact. Prevention is better handled when kids are young. Raise them to be self-sufficient and content. Talk to them when they are young, and talk to them often. Would a simple, non-confrontational conversation with my parents at a young age have prevented this anon’s affection for drugs? I don’t know. If I could go back in time, I would surely tell them to try.
"Raise them to be self-sufficient and content" -- it would seem a part of that, especially at high-school age, is to give them freedom to make their choices and not constantly subject them to suspicion and assumption of guilt.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Anon, for your sincere insights. Your comments are welcome (though this prudish writer will join the chorus of voices you've surely already heard urging you to kick the habit).