Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Testing times

Last month the White House Drug Czar's office awarded more than $7 million in grants to fund random student drug testing at more than 350 elementary, middle, and high schools around the country. And so continues the disturbing national trend of pointlessly invading young people's privacy in the name of the failed War on Drugs.

Student drug testing is a bad idea because it simply doesn't work and is needlessly invasive, among several other reasons. The largest study ever conducted on the topic shows that testing has no impact on drug use by young people. Yet, ambitious drug testing firms - some of them owned and operated by former federal drug officials who helped to proliferate the practice - are eagerly selling their products to schools everywhere.

Clearly, our leaders should stop flushing taxpayers' money down the toilet (literally) on programs that do nothing but alienate young people and line the pockets of good ol' boys.

How can this disturbing trend be most effectively combated? Should we offer resources and assistance to local students and parents trying to just say "no" to proposed or existing drug testing programs in their schools? Should we focus on working in Washington, DC to diminish the federal grant funding that is supporting these programs? What other strategies and tactics can we use to stop student drug testing in its tracks?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Local SSDP chapters should reach out to neighborhood schools and school districts and inform them on the futility of random drug testing. It is time that students and parents have the most accurate information on this growing federal government trend of trampling the rights of our youth.

Anonymous said...

How about look them right in the eye and say the only piss test your gonna get from me is a taste test.

Or fill up that urine cup and toss toss toss it on the piss police as you "accidently" stumble right as your handing it to them. Awww what a shame I sorry. nah not really since you wanted it to begin with not me!

Here is one I have been thinking of that might just work with all the new HIPPA laws regarding personal medical information. I know here when you are summoned to piss on command you have 3 hours in which to produce a predetermined amount of piss.

1. Everyone could take full advantage of that 3 hours and milk it for all its worth. I do that now and I just love the look the piss police lady has as she askes every 5 minutes if I need to go now haha. I tell her relax my bladder doesn't do tricks on command, besides your the one who wanted the piss right this second to begin with so your just gonna have to wait.

Since they come in unannounced and you have no advanced warning you may very well have just zipped your fly from taking a long draining piss 30 seconds before they showed up.

What if you claimed to have a medical condition which made it extremely difficult for you to urinate? Prostrate problems cause this as do several medications that I know of. The beauty is that they can not ask you for any details and they can not demand you tell them. I know this might not get you out of testing all together but on short notice if you can get by till later and prepare for it it might help.

I am going to use this angle with my work and their drug tsting policies. I plan to pull parts of various harassment and privacy policies to use against the drug testing one. The gov and corps have created such a huge amount of policies and laws and regulations that they are now to the point we should be able to pick them apart and show how none of these policies can be upheld when you are in fact doing those things the policy forbids.