Drug Testing Students
The Emotional Issues of Student Drug Testing
The reason for why school boards are drug testing their students has been established, endorsed, and continually battled. Part of this proverbial drug testing tug of war is the following question that begs to be asked:
What emotional impact will drug testing school students have on them?
After all, being a teenager is hard enough with various pressures, doubts, and so forth, much less without being subjected to drug testing. This could be quite emotional for the student? Why? Simple. By drug testing a student, they’re indirectly being told they are suspected of using drugs.
No one wants to be called a drug user, especially kids barely out of high school. Just another label to be teased upon but as far as emotional issues go with drug testing, things get worse before they improve: Drug testing via urinalysis is plain degrading and embarrassing.
First, school students are assumed of being illegal drug users without probable cause or their choice to opt out of the drug testing program. Then, to add insult to possible injury, school boards do not have the ability to institute oral drug testing for a humiliatingly free drug testing experience. Not to mention, ergo, that oral drug testing is far a for more effective method of drug testing than a urine test kit. Additionally, oral drug testing has shown a smaller tendency for false positive drug test results where drug-free subjects do not show up as positive for drugs in their system.
The risk for emotional damage is considered when a student fails a drug testing screen. While most school districts, from what we’ve read, do not report the positive drug testing results to law enforcement authorities, they do place the student in a drug rehabilitation program. So, it is clear that word will get out that so and so is using drugs and therein lies the problem with student drug testing.
The picture of how student’s emotional well-being may be fractured by random drug testing, but be objective an consider the other side of the coin.
Despite the emotional impact a student may encounter from mandatory school drug testing, this emotional component tends to start and stop with embarrassment from peers and/or family. Consider, for instance, if a student is really on drugs. This is a very serious problem, period. Liberals may disagree, and they have the right to do so, but drug addiction is not to be taken lightly, especially for people — students — who are too young to make an informed adult decision. So, despite the emotional embarrassment a student may encounter from testing positive for drugs in front of his or her school, the impact of getting that student off drugs is worth it.
As you can see, there are two sides to this controversial drug testing issue. Simply put, students who are on drugs should have resources available to them to get off the drugs hopefully for the rest of their lives. Drug testing said students is a policy that fits like a damn glove, and this policy, despite its controversy and constant massaging by the media, appears to be born out of passion than politics. In other words, policy makers and tax payers agree in unison that America’s youth should get the hell off drugs and have a way to do it. Who’d argue that? If these students want to use drugs and break the law, perhaps that’s a decision they should make as an informed adult.
The tension surrounding this drug testing issue is so thick you could cut it with a knife, for many lawyers, parents and students themselves feel that if they know they’re not on drugs, they shouldn’t be subjected to possible emotional harm from mandatory drug testing.
And, therein lies the crux of the problem with drug testing: Not everyone wants to do it even if the cause is good for others.It’s almost like the yay side gains momentum inversely proportional to the opponents of student drug testing. However, the stats don’t lie.
A recent report described how student drug testing is highly effective at curbing students from taking drugs in the future. The study cited in the report said that students who are subjected to drug testing are four times less likely to use drugs than those who are not drug tested. It should be noted that this study was conducted on student athletes where the focus was broadened from marijuana to performance enhancing drugs like anabolic steroids, and may not be an accurate depiction of non-athlete students.
In the next installment of our first student drug testing series, we’ll discuss the Social Issues of Drug Testing. Stay tuned for that, but until then, here is some recommended reading on the student drug testing saga:
