Posted on: Monday, January 20, 2003

EDITORIAL
Beware of ill-conceived drug testing

While we join Senate President Robert Bunda in our concern over substance abuse problems afflicting Hawai'i youth, we're inclined to join the chorus of skeptics who question his proposal to implement random drug testing at schools.

Bunda has called for random drug tests for all students, using hair samples that can detect drug residues within three months of substance use.

But before Hawai'i buys into this campaign, ask yourself this: Do these drug testing programs make sense as an educational policy? School officials, after all, are hired to run a school, not to become experts on drug detection.

Moreover, does drug testing breach the trust basis of education? There's that risk that it could scare children away from school.

Bunda asks that we debate the issue, and we couldn't agree more. Because if this random drug testing program isn't thought through very carefully, it could overburden an already-strapped school system and create an atmosphere of paranoia on campus.

Let us first clarify that we have no objection to mandatory drug testing for school athletes. In that case, the health and safety needs in athletics clearly outweigh the privacy issue.

However, random drug testing of all students is a much thornier constitutional issue. First, it must comply with the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures by state officers.

If this idea moves forward, those who test positive for drug use should be dealt with through counseling rather than punishment. That is the model in other jurisdictions. But that begs the question of whether we have the facilities to accommodate a possible avalanche of drug treatment needs.

And if parental consent is required — and we believe it is — then at least some of those who really need to be tested may not receive the consent because their parents may be drug users who don't want any trouble.

Perhaps it would be simpler and more cost-effective for parents themselves to test their children for drug use at home.

John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, stresses that random drug testing is a very powerful tool not to be handled lightly.

"You need to have local community work through the issue, talking to parents and kids and people who do drug treatment," he told The New York Times.

Sounds like good advice for Hawai'i as we grapple over how to police drug use in the schools.