Drug Testing in Schools





The Supreme Court has declared more than once that drug testing students involved in competitive extracurricular activities is constitutional. However, I disagree. The Supreme Court case Petitioners v. Lindsay Earls was about a student who thought that drug testing students involved in extracurricular activities is an invasion of privacy and unconstitutional. The tests only look for illegal substances and any prescription medication the student is taking will not show up in the results. The school said it was trying to stop the drug problem they were experiencing and to hold students involved in extracurricular activities to a higher standard. The ruling was, “Because this policy reasonably serves the school district’s important interest in detecting and preventing drug use among its students, we hold that it is constitutional.” This ruling supports infringement on the basic American rights. It allows school officials to perform unruly searches of its students. Students’ rights in schools are being more and more limited every day, especially being protected against unruly searches. The school system is trying to remove any rights a student may have in order to have complete control over its students. The court believes “students who participate in competitive extracurricular activities voluntarily subject themselves to many of the same intrusions on their privacy as do athletes.” This is wrong because nonphysical activities have no possibility of drug related injury and the school should not be able to govern its students the way it tries to. I don’t understand how the school has a right to stick their noses in the students’ personal life. What a student does outside of the school, should not be the school’s responsibility. We attend school for one purpose only, to learn. The schools job is to teach, not govern the lives of those attending. I think extracurricular activities sponsored by schools should not be allowed because it takes away from the school teaching the students. We should go to school, learn, and then leave. Nothing more, nothing less. Schools should only be responsible for teaching, nothing else. The school has every right to inform students about the dangers of drugs, but they should go about teaching it a different way. Schools try to scare their students out of using drugs and risky activities, with little success. If they taught students about the medicinal uses and how to be responsible without bending the truth, they would have a lot more success. Although, the schools only job is to teach, the second the school tries to control the lives of its students, it is not doing its job. New laws allow school officials to share personal information with state officials and non-education records.  Third party test centers may be able to see this information. Some of it is necessary for schools to know about its students, but some of it is excessive such as pregnancy and prescription medications. This is absurd, our records are meant for the schools to use to better our education, but obviously they can’t even be trusted with our information. Schools think that they are always doing the right thing. They pay $500 a pop to have drug sniffing dogs come in to schools and search for drugs. The dogs had many false positives while sniffing lockers allowing the belongings of innocent students to be searched through sometimes exposing embarrassing object the student owns. The dogs have had only one bust; it was a miniscule amount of marijuana in a student’s car.  School officials also think that they possess the right to search anyone at any time, however they want. A middle school official strip searched a 14 year old girl making her expose every part of her body in an effort to find Advil! Who the hell do they think they are? They were looking for a drug that is nowhere near illegal. This is just another example of the school trying to flex their muscles and stick their nose where it doesn’t belong.