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The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) will again sponsor a series of regional summits to encourage middle and high-school officials to enact random, student drug testing in public schools. The 2006 summits will mark the third consecutive year that the White House is funding the symposiums, which are scheduled to take place next spring in Orlando, San Diego, northern Virginia, and Milwaukee.
NORML Senior Policy Analyst Paul Armentano criticized the proposed taxpayer-funded summits, stating: "Random drug testing of students is a humiliating, invasive practice that runs contrary to the principles of due process. It compels teens to submit evidence against themselves and forfeit their privacy rights as a necessary requirement for attending school. Rather than presuming our school children innocent of illicit activity, suspicionless drug testing presumes them guilty until they prove themselves innocent. Is this truly the message the Bush administration wishes to send America's young people?"
Armentano said that the only federally commissioned review examining the effectiveness of student drug testing programs found the policy to have no discernible impact on youth drug use. The 2003 study of 76,000 students by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research concluded, "At each grade level 8, 10, and 12 the investigators found virtually identical rates of drug use" in schools that drug tested versus those that did not.
Last February, the White Houses proposed increasing federal funding for student drug testing programs by more than 150 percent to a record $25.4 million annually. In September, the US Department of Education (DOE) appropriated federal grants totaling more than $7 million to pay for the establishment of random student drug testing in 350 schools nationwide.
For more information, please contact Paul Armentano, NORML Senior Policy Analyst, at (202) 483-5500.
DL: NORML - Working to Reform Marijuana Laws Since 1970
Source: NORML Foundation (DC)
Published: December 15, 2005
Copyright: 2005 NORML
Contact: norml@norml.org
Website: NORML - Working to Reform Marijuana Laws Since 1970
NORML Senior Policy Analyst Paul Armentano criticized the proposed taxpayer-funded summits, stating: "Random drug testing of students is a humiliating, invasive practice that runs contrary to the principles of due process. It compels teens to submit evidence against themselves and forfeit their privacy rights as a necessary requirement for attending school. Rather than presuming our school children innocent of illicit activity, suspicionless drug testing presumes them guilty until they prove themselves innocent. Is this truly the message the Bush administration wishes to send America's young people?"
Armentano said that the only federally commissioned review examining the effectiveness of student drug testing programs found the policy to have no discernible impact on youth drug use. The 2003 study of 76,000 students by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research concluded, "At each grade level 8, 10, and 12 the investigators found virtually identical rates of drug use" in schools that drug tested versus those that did not.
Last February, the White Houses proposed increasing federal funding for student drug testing programs by more than 150 percent to a record $25.4 million annually. In September, the US Department of Education (DOE) appropriated federal grants totaling more than $7 million to pay for the establishment of random student drug testing in 350 schools nationwide.
For more information, please contact Paul Armentano, NORML Senior Policy Analyst, at (202) 483-5500.
DL: NORML - Working to Reform Marijuana Laws Since 1970
Source: NORML Foundation (DC)
Published: December 15, 2005
Copyright: 2005 NORML
Contact: norml@norml.org
Website: NORML - Working to Reform Marijuana Laws Since 1970
