Posted on 10/08/2002 4:35:09 AM PDT by Wolfie
New Frontier in Random Drug Testing: Checking High Schoolers for Tobacco
Breath mints won't cut it anymore for students who have been smoking in the bathroom -- some schools around the country are administering urine tests to teenagers to find out whether they have been using tobacco.
Opponents say such testing violates students' rights and can keep them out of the extracurricular activities they need to stay on track. But some advocates say smoking in the boys' room is a ticket to more serious drug use.
"Some addicted drug users look back to cigarettes as the start of it all," said Jeff McAlpin, director of marketing for EDPM, a Birmingham drug-testing company.
Short of catching them in the act, school officials previously had no way of proving students had been smoking.
Testing students for drugs has spread in recent years and was given a boost in June when the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed random testing of those in extracurricular activities. Tobacco can easily be added to the usual battery of tests.
"I agree with it," said 16-year-old Vestavia Hills High School junior Rosemary Stafford, a member of the marching band. "It's illegal, it's addictive. Maybe the punishment shouldn't be as severe, but they should test for it."
In Alabama, where the legal age for purchasing and smoking tobacco products is 19, about a dozen districts, mostly in the Birmingham area, test for nicotine along with alcohol and several illegal drugs, including marijuana.
In most cases, the penalties for testing positive for cotinine -- a metabolic byproduct that remains in the body after smoking or chewing tobacco -- are the same as those for illegal drugs: The student's parents are notified and he or she is usually placed on school probation and briefly suspended from sports or other activities.
Alabama's Hoover school system randomly tested 679 of its 1,500 athletes for drug use this past school year. Fourteen high school students tested positive, 12 of them for tobacco.
Elsewhere around the country, schools in Blackford County, Ind., test for tobacco use in athletes, participants in other extracurricular activities, and students who take driver's education or apply for parking permits.
In Lockney, Texas, a federal judge recently struck down the district's testing of all students for the use of drugs, alcohol and tobacco.
In Columbia County, Fla., the school board will vote Tuesday on a testing policy that would include tobacco. Teenagers who take part in extracurricular activities or apply for permits to drive to school would be screened.
"Tobacco does and will affect a larger majority of the students than alcohol or drugs," said Gloria Spizey, the county's coordinator for Safe and Drug-Free Schools. "Tobacco use can be devastating. We felt it needed to stand with the other drugs."
Screenings can detect cotinine for up to 10 days in regular smokers of about a half a pack, or 10 cigarettes, a day, McAlpin said. Experts say it is unlikely that cotinine would collect in people exposed to secondhand smoke.
"Tobacco is illegal for them to have -- it's also a health and safety issue," said Phil Hastings, supervisor of safety and alternative education for schools in Decatur, which recently adopted a testing program that includes tobacco. "We've got a responsibility to let the kids know the dangers of tobacco use."
While random drug testing overall is being fought by the American Civil Liberties Union and students' rights groups, the addition of nicotine testing has drawn little opposition.
Guidelines published last month by the White House drug office do not specifically address tobacco testing.
"On tobacco, we have the same policy as on testing for drugs -- it may not be right for every school and community," said Jennifer de Vallance, press secretary for the office. "We encourage parents and officials to assess the extent and nature of the tobacco problem."
Shawn Heller, executive director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy in Washington, said tobacco use by teen-agers is a major problem, but testing for it is just another step in the invasion of students' privacy.
"We're making schools like prisons," he said.
. . . but for the fact that most pro-dopers apparently don't have children. (Who needs kids when you have dope to build your life around? In the timeless paraphrased words of the inimitable Foghorn Leghorn: "I got--I say, I got mah dope ta keep ME warm!")
Or was it RJCogburn? . . . Wolfie? Hemlock? Dark Lord? headsonpikes? GreenGrinningHorkPhlegm?
I can't keep track these days.
Oh yeh, I sure wouldn't want to park next to someone who was high on Virginia Slims...
Few if any here are "pro-dope," and you have no basis on which to speculate about drug-freedom advocates' families. (I have two kids, who I have instructed at length on why they're better off without alcohol, tobacco, or other drugs.)
You simply revel in dsiplaying your ignorance, don't you?
24/7
4th Amendment rights. The state, through its agents is conducting searches with neither probable cause nor a warrant.
Some will say children have no rights. That's what the "It Takes a Village" crowd would like you to believe. Children do have unalienable rights, but because they are minors they lack legal capacity to exercise them. Their rights are instead held and exercised by proxy by their parents or legal guardians. If the parent exercises the child's 4th Amendment right, then no probable cause and no warrant means no search.
Some will say students voluntarily waive their 4th Amendment rights by asking to participate in extra-curricular activities. They forget, this is the state we are dealing with, not a privately funded school. The state has no legitimate power to barter rights for tax sponsored priviliges. This ignores the unalienable nature of rights, and uses taxation as a lever to coerce forfeiture of rights. It is akin to forcing those who get drivers licenses to forfeit freedom of speech or religion.
And finally some will say the courts have ruled otherwise so it is a mute issue. To them, I remind them of Roe v Wade, and even slavery. The courts are wrong there and they're wrong here too. In fact, the courts are wrong so often and hold such deep contempt for the Constitution they are sworn to uphold, that they have undermined their legitimate authority to the point where their opinion is worth no more than that of your common man-on-the-street. The only difference being that these black robed princes have the power to back their whimiscal, illegitimate opinions with brute force. It is now fear, not respect for law that they wield.
Is that what you call mouthing support for freedom while pushing people around?
Like I said, the "pro-dope" contingent on FR usually aren't honest about their agenda.
Equating guns to drugs is one of the oldest and most tired arguments of leftists and their Libertarian cousins.
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