Ian Thomason

Mrs. Longman

English 1101

20 December 2018

Why Drug Testing In Schools Is A Waste

Drug testing in schools has become a huge deal for America within the past few

years. School districts across the country have decided to make it their responsibility to

keep kids “in line” and away from unsolicited drug use that could end up possibly ruining

their lives. Schools are not required by law to do this, so only select districts choose to

practice the testing. It’s time to dig deep into the facts and find out why exactly it is that

schools deem it necessary to drug test their students, although it has shown to be a failure

in most districts.

According to the National Center for Education Evaluation, an anonymous survey

was taken by students in both districts that have mandatory drug testing, and don’t. When

asking the students if they planned on using illegal drugs within the next twelve months,

the results were surprisingly similar between the two. In fact, the students who did have

mandatory testing, had a slightly higher percentage of students claim that they plan on

using drugs within the next year. Within the tested schools, thirty four percent of the

students said that they planned on using drugs, while the non tested schools came in at a

close thirty three percent (The Effectiveness, pg 1). The National Center for Education

Evaluation also stated that there was no difference in the number of people who had

already tried tried drugs within the two school districts, showing that the testing hasn’t
really made a difference in whether the students resort to drug use or not (The

Effectiveness, pg 1).

Not only has the drug testing within schools seem to be failing as a deterrent, it

has also become very costly for school districts, causing many programs to reduce in size

or even stop all together. According to an article in Star Tribune, drug testing in a Florida

school district had to be shut down due to such a great cost. The average price of a drug

test can span from anywhere between $15 to $35 dollars. The district had tested six

hundred students, and it had brought their expenses up over $100,000. After only a year,

the program was suspended due to a lack of funding (Jury Is Out, 1). If you do the math

and factor in just how many students usually test positive, the cost of finding a student

that tests “positive” is outrageous. School drug tests often come back negative, with only

few positive at a time. For every 125 students, 1 student will test usually fail a drug test.

This would mean that schools are spending nearly $3,000 to find one kid that smoked a

little marijuana a couple weeks ago (Ingraham, 2). Since the tests cost so much, and seem

to be nearly ineffective, isn’t there a better way that our school districts could be

spending money? The people paying taxes for school funding have no say in whether

these schools are testing students or not. With all of the money that these schools are

putting towards drug testing, couldn’t they be putting it towards something a little more

useful and effective? Classroom renovations, new sports fields / courts, drug prevention

programs such as guest speakers and drug education courses, working on a more

handicap accessible school, and lots of other alternatives. This large chunk of money

could be used in so many other ways that could be effective and truly helpful for a school

district, but yet they seem to be wasting it on a failed deterrent.

 Random drug testing in schools will also show to ruin the relationships between

students and their school administrators / teachers. When students do actually have a drug

issue, some students used to go to their teachers and administrators to get help and sober

up, but now that their is random testing and punishments for drug abuse in schools,

students are afraid to go to anyone with their issues in fear of punishment. Drug testing

makes students view their administrators as someone who is always who is always

viewing them as a suspect, and they are basically guilty until proven innocent (School

drug testing, 4)

Drug testing in schools is most often targeted at student athletes in most cases.

Schools drug test the student athletes because that is the largest population among all of

the kids. Around 88% of schools that have implemented random drug testing programs,

test their student athletes. Other students aren’t tested nearly as hard. For example, among

the schools that test, have chosen to test 62% of students in extracurricular activities, 39%

of students that are on probation, 32% of students that drive to school, and 30% of the

entire population (Ingraham, 1). So why is it that the student athletes are hit so hard with

the testing? It’s possible that many students aren’t participating in sports anymore simply

because they don’t want to be drug tested by their schools. If we are discouraging

children from participating in extracurricular activities such as sports, clubs, National

Honor Society, etc… then we will have a real problem on our hands. Children will

become more secluded from society and also most likely start doing more drugs as a

result, or drink alcohol.

Not only is the testing of students a very costly operation, but it can also be

viewed as immoral to do so. Testing a student can be viewed as an invasion of privacy.

Even as most of the population doesn’t participate in any illicit drug use, it is still nerve

racking for some students to be forced to urinate in a cup for someone to examine them.

On many cases, the students have never even seen drugs in their life but still find the

testing to leave them uneasy. Imagine urinating in a cup for someone to examine you, and

know everything that is in your system. This can be a nerve wracking thought.

Drug testing can also possibly be seen as a violation of students rights. A school is

responsible for the students only while they are on school grounds, or on field trips in

some cases. Still, the school technically should have no authority in what a student does

after hours and off of school property, right? Schools say that they test in order to keep

kids safe and allow them to take advantage of their academics to the fullest capabilities.

So this would mean that coming to school high on a drug would obviously affect your

learning ability. But this isn’t what is showing up on the drug tests. The most commonly

used drug among high schoolers and the general population is marijuana. Marijuana is

known to stay in the system for a very long time compared to other drugs that are harder

and more dangerous. Through testing, marijuana can be traced through urine up to thirty

days, blood up to two weeks, and hair up to ninety days. This obviously means that a

student could have possibly smoked marijuana nearly a month ago off of school grounds

and was not high on school property, therefore not affecting their learning ability in any

way whatsoever, but the school will still kick them off of sports teams and / or punish

them in school. Shouldn’t it not be any of the schools business what happens after school

hours as long as it doesn’t cause any distractions or problems on school grounds? Schools

should create a different approach on their testing, as it comes off as an invasion of

privacy in my mind. Some students are subject to taking medications for personal
problems such as depression, ADHD, ADD, etc… Not everyone wants the school to

know that they are on these medications as they could find it to be an embarrassment and

an invasion on their personal life.

Even if kids were using drugs while still in school, why are we punishing them?

When it comes to drug abuse and addiction, punishing someone with suspension or

taking their parking pass is not going to help them. Most high schoolers would just take

the time off of school from suspension to get into even more trouble. If schools are going

to test their students, they should not be punished when they fail them. Instead, they

should be given counseling to help them leave drugs in the past and find new activities

which they can find a natural high from.

With all of these drug testing programs being implemented in schools, you would

think that the health and decision making of students would be at an all time high, but

you would have thought wrong. Although students are being tested for drug abuse, some

of the worst drugs don’t even show up on these tests. Alcohol, cigarettes, LSD, and

multiple other substances that poison your body are now being used more often simply

because they don’t show up on these drug screens that the schools have decided to put in

place. High Schoolers are becoming alcoholics hardcore drug addicts because they were

afraid of THC showing up on their drug test. This is turning a small problem of a student

experimenting with a little marijuana into being binge drinkers, and being addicted to

hard drugs such as LSD. Most people would probably rather have left it with some

marijuana use.

After all of the research and personal experience, I can tell you that drug testing is

not the necessary route in school districts. The facts show that testing the student
 population is a costly process that is showing little to no progress in helping stop drug use

by students. I believe that the schools should be investing their money in other areas that

actually gives back to the community, rather than just shoveling their money into an

unproven process. I am genuinely amazed that the drug testing in schools hasn’t been

questioned by the citizens of the districts up to this day. Review of these testing programs

in schools needs to most definitely be done, and possibly even taken out of schools for

good. If everyone was a little more informed on how much it really costs, and how little

it actually helps, there would be a call for change across the United States in terms of

student rights and the financial spending of schools.

Works Cited

Ingraham, Christopher. “School Drug Tests: Costly, Ineffective, and More Common than

You Think.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 27 Apr. 2015,

www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/27/schools-drug-tests-costly-

ineffective-and-more-common-than-you-think. Accessed 20 Dec. 2018

“Jury Is out on Effectiveness of Drug Testing in Schools.” Star Tribune, Star Tribune, 21
 Jan. 2014. startribune.com/jury-is-out-on-effectiveness-of-drug-testing-in-schools.

Accessed 20 Dec. 2018.

“The Effectiveness of Mandatory- Random Student Drug Testing.” Institute of Education

Sciences (IES) Home Page, a Part of the U.S. Department of Education, National Center

for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance: The Effectiveness of Mandatory-

Random Student Drug Testing, ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20104025/. Accessed 20 Dec. 2018.

“School Drug Testing Programs Do More Harm than Good." Teen Drug Abuse, edited by David

E. Nelson, Greenhaven Press, 2011. Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints in

Context,

http://link.galegroup.com.sinclair.ohionet.org/apps/doc/EJ3010436257/OVIC?u=dayt304

01&sid=OVIC&xid=5cd10282. Accessed 20 Dec. 2018.