Hot Air

I get it.

It's a slam-dunk if you're a politician.

Random drug testing begins in our fair burg's excellently commended blue ribbon high-falutin' we-rule award-winning playoff-making TAKS-test-dominating college-bound-student factory school district in April. That's right. Random drug testing for students involved in any "extracurricular" activity. It's been going on for athletes for quite some time, but it was my understanding that those tests were specifically for performance enhancing drugs. This makes sense on two fronts: First, it has to be governed to keep the playing fields level. Second, as an added bonus, the health concerns of performance enhancers should be monitored. But those are sports...and these are activities in which the drugs being tested for directly affect the integrity of the games being played.

But now any student in ANY extracurricular activity (such as the chess club, or robotics team, or math club) or any student who drives (needing a parking permit) or any student who has parents sign them up can be tested for any drug at all.

The levels of outrage I had when I heard this story are staggering. If I had a child going to an L.I.S.D. school, I'd have gone to the meeting last night and made sure I was heard. I should've gone anyway as my tax dollars are supporting this nonsense on stilts.

First of all, and by far most important, the message being sent to our young people is that your civil rights don't matter. That you are under suspicion by your mere presence. It wouldn't bother me if those young folks got all civilly disobedient in some form or fashion.

Secondly, it's a waste of time and money. Lemme see if my old youth pastor genes kick in here while I mention that alcohol only can be detected for about 12 hours in your bloodstream. In fact, any drug they test for will be gone by Monday if the kid stopped usage by Saturday night. They might get lucky and catch some cocaine that stuck around longer than usual, and maybe some crystal meth. But let's be realistic shall we? You might catch a few chronic pot smokers (stays 10 days to 21 days depending on frequency of usage) or a first-timer (usually stays 4 days) if you do these on Mondays. But that's about all you'll get...and that's presuming they don't cheat the tests, and any Google search can help them out if they happen to have been too stoned to have it register while the other kids doing the drugs were telling them how to beat the tests.

And, ahem, you blowhards, the rage right now involves prescription stuff that isn't prescribed to them. Oxycontin and other stuff like that. Yeah. Those urine tests won't pick those up.

Thirdly, if I hear one more well-intentioned parent say something stupid like, "Anything we can do to get drugs out of our schools is a positive thing" I think I'll puke. ANYTHING? REALLY? Machine guns? Handcuffing them to their parents all day every day in class? Having lie-detectors at the end of every class day? So...what you're saying is "by any means necessary" we should stamp out drugs? Death penalty for association with known drug users? How 'bout that?

Fourthly, why stop at drugs? Let's do invasive tests to see who had sex over the weekend. Let's scan text messages from their phones to determine who lied to their parents this weekend. Let's put GPS systems in their phones and have the school monitor all their whereabouts all the time and expel the bad seed who trespassed or loitered or skateboarded in violation of code. Let's have the principal hack into their MySpaces and Facebooks and confiscate all the photos of guys mooning their friends on 407 and the girls who kissed each other on a dare. Since we don't trust them to stay sober, let's just go ahead and admit we don't really trust them at all in any area and have at it.

So, blowhard politicians, let me make a suggestion or two:

Teach math and history and robotics and chess and football and science and all that jazz. While we're at it, teach jazz & blues (but don't tell them about roadhouses or selling your souls to the devil just to be sure).
Do that very well. Put your money into that.
You already have rules in place for students who disrupt due to the influence of illegal substances, so just enforce those, okay?
Let the U.S. Constitution be a guideline for you. Even if you don't have to (yes, I know all about in loco parentis).
Make a decision to let parents decide if they're going to drug test their child or not. Even if those parents suck at parenting, well, this isn't your responsibility as teachers or administrators.
Teach our kids that principles matter...even if the desire behind erasing those principles appears to be helpful.
Teach our kids that fiscal responsibility is more important than catching a few stoners.

Teach our kids that politicians have better things to do and bigger fish to fry.

And, once again, parents, do your job. And if there are parents out there who don't see that civil rights and lines of accountability being in the right place with the right people, or even silly use of tax dollars...

...we might be in more trouble than we thought.

Tell you what, though.

I'll make a deal with you folks who think this is a good thing. I don't do drugs. Never have. Can't imagine that I will...although I was addicted to Afrin Nasal Spray once, which I heard showed up on drug tests. However, since I kicked my nasal spray habit when I was 15, I'm feeling pretty good about my chances of passing a drug test. But I don't like the reality that someone can just come in and demand one to anybody...me or my friends. And I'd be annoyed as all get out if somebody suggested that I should be tested for the greater good...whatever that means to them.

So, we'll get all those lovely neighborhood associations we have to do the very same thing--see, somebody's going to have to pay for it, so we'll just add about $1 a month to your dues. We'll just randomly select grownups who own homes to family drug testing. We'll get the same percentage of homeowners and renters involved and they'll just come into your home...

...you pee in a cup...

...and if you fail, you have to move out of your home for 30 days and live outside the L.I.S.D. district. And we'll take your driver's license.

And, oh, yeah. Your neighbors will see the drug testing vans outside your home. Those false positives because of the bagel you ate will have lasting repercussions when your friends get to Starbucks and gossip about your being shunned. Your property values might drop if you find yourself living in a covenant neighborhood where a higher percentage of pot smokers live.

Manalive.

I just don't see a win here.

Anywhere.

And people wonder why GenX is so cynical.