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Youth can never be controlled, however by doing mandatory random drug testing we can hopefully coerce youth into the right pathway to a successful lifestyle.

I don't think it should be required, youth will do whatever they want regardless of the consequences or possible dangers.

Hey, I'm passed that level of schooling, so why not?

Great logic. That should be how all educational debates are answered.

This screams 'unconstitutional invasion of privacy.' If a youth is going to do this, he will. It doesn't matter how many drug tests you give him, it's not going to faze him. (And I seriously doubt suspension for drug possession will either, seeing as he's been 'trapped' in school for years. )

Of what possible basis is this to help the community? An employer may use drug use as a means for dismissal. A person using drugs, drinking, etc may be a danger or at best, not so great at their job. But this is largely true for more mechanical tasks and their occupations (like a driver or a machinist). Education is largely about creative applications of the mind rather than physical tasks. These can be adversely affected by drug abuse, but are not always affected by simple drug use.

In large part I would suppose this to be a case of guilty until proven innocent or guilt by association. Not every teenage American goes out binge drinking and experimenting with mind altering/expanding drugs. In fact, there's a considerable number who did neither or, at worst, did so once or twice and came away unsatisfied.

As another point: what exactly are we going to do with this information once we have it? Kick the kids out of school? Force them into rehab? Arrest them?

Sun Tzu;

Who is responsible for your children's behavior? Are you, as the parent responsible for your children? If not, then who and why not you?

We, as parents need to accept responsibility not only for begetting our children but for their actions and the results of their actions while they are in our care until they have reached the legal age of adulthood – at which age, if we raised them right, they will be able to make cognizant decisions on their own.

What I am reading from your statement is that all we parents have to do is produce children and then they will raise themselves on auto-pilot or something like that. I submit to you that that attitude is irresponsible at the least and downright stupid at its worst. If we parents are not going to raise our children, then who will? I also submit that while in the process of growing up, inside our households, children have only the rights that we parents give them – THAT is how children learn about parameters in life, but to submit that mandatory drug testing is a violation of a child's rights is utterly foolish since most children have no concept of rights until we parents teach it to them.

It all comes back down to who is responsible for a child until that child reaches the legal age of adulthood.

I submit that it is the parents who do the raising. Not the school district that imposes it by means of mandatory drug testing.

I'm not sure how you read that in my statement. It seemed pretty clear that the problem is the drug testing being mandatory and that I don't see or agree with what the ultimate goal should be here.

I don't think there would be any problem if there was probable cause to test anybody we want (though they could refuse to do so under their 5th amendment rights or simply out of privacy issues without a warrant). But this is not what is implied by "mandatory drug testing." It implies a level of guilt prior to any evidence being presented. I already think we go too far in controlling narcotics in schools. The strip search case that came back from SCOTUS for example… they did so over ibuprofen that another student alleged someone to have hidden.

I should think the administrative attitude that makes ibuprofen an item of concern is quite enough to allay your concerns on the responsibility of the schools. It however scares the crap out of someone like me who would rather people grow up with a sense of trust, respect for privacy, and learn to develop even a pittance of personal autonomy and responsibility on their own.

haha actually most of our political leaders make judgements based soley on the the fact of how it affects them if they were in that situation, which is the reason so many criminals are getting so many rights.

drugs are illegal, abusing medications, illegal, so just because someone isnt adversely affected at school by being under an influence doesnt negate the fact that they have still done something illegal, and now they are on a campus with other students in a period of life where they are heavily influenced by their peers. so by drug testing students we could be taking another step, no matter how small, to creating drug free campuses.

The question to me is whether or not the actual societal harm of drug use and experimentation justifies their illegality in the first place. In most cases, it does not even come close to this justification.

If you think a drug free campus is somehow an ideal state, then yes, you could argue this would have an effect on drug abuse (I think you could also argue it would have no effect or even negative impacts, the alcohol ban on under 21 sales hasn't done anything positive either regarding college drinking). But my contention would be that we shouldn't even be worrying about this in the first place because there's little evidence to suggest it is a real problem worth providing government interventions to oversee.

I agree there is little evidence showing that drugs and alchohol have major societal harm based on the fact that few societies allow drug use. But if you look at the statistics of one of the major known legalized drug countries, Amsterdam, you will see a huge increase in crime and moral depravity in their nation.

No. You wouldn't. That's a piece of Faux news propaganda. A "huge increase in crime" doesn't correlate with drug use, either in Amsterdam or anywhere else.

And if your argument is that there's a huge increase in crime and moral depravity (whatever that means), then I don't think you should be agreeing that there's little evidence for major societal harms. I would have considered a crime wave a major societal harm.

I agree with you papadawg. There is nothing to hide with a drug test, unless you're doing drugs.

terrible idea. You would be potentially destroying people's lives and futures because they maybe smoked a bit of weed. You'll never get rid of "drugs" becasue people have been doing, will always do, and will always want to do drugs. You can't presume that all people who "do drugs" are bad people with bad grades. i've known many students in all levels of education who are on honor roll and become very succesful, and smoked pot at night, or on the weekends. It's one thing to try and keep drugs out of high schools because it could impare their ability to pay attention, but you run the risk of creating permenant records that will damage them forever.

Why don't people try and stop pharmacutical companies from putting out barely tested, suicide inducing mega-drugs that kids are stealing from their parents more than they are using natural drugs!

no they shouldnt as a parent if you want to make your child take a drug test then so be it, but the school system shuldnt be "parenting" your child…unless were gunna let them tell them what time to be home at night as well!

The whole process of funding drug tests for all students would impose large costs indirectly on the taxpayers. Drug tests can often be inaccurate and I see no reason to test a student who is well-functioning.

Its illegal. Thats that. If the person is stupid enough to participate in illegal activites, then they deserve the consequences, even if that means a ruined life!

How is one student selling to another student considered "all over the school"?

A narcotic, or hell OTC painkillers or other drugs, are a consumable good, not durable goods that could be reused by everyone. One to one transactions may be in the school's interest to police for other reasons (potential for dangerous medical interactions between drugs, sale of prescription medications, etc), but drug testing would not likely localize the source of these transactions and would penalize the vast majority of students who were uninvolved in them by accusing them of a crime without probable cause.

well if youre caught with drugs on school property in my school, doing them or not, you get expelled.

i dont think that students should have to take a drug test. you are only going to school to learn.

yess it Should be Required To Protect Them from not doing bad Choices

yess so they can get better knowledge

and soo they know what the doing while there fucking i mean learning