Supreme Court approves random drug tests for many public high schools

Associated Press / SFGate

[RCW2001]

URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2002/06/27/national1005EDT0546.DTL

(06-27) 07:05 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) --

The Supreme Court approved random drug tests for many public high school students Thursday, ruling that schools' interest in ridding their campuses of drugs outweighs an individual's right to privacy.

The 5-4 decision would allow the broadest drug testing the court has yet permitted for young people whom authorities have no particular reason to suspect of wrongdoing. It applies to students who join competitive after-school activities or teams, a category that includes many if not most middle-school and high-school students.

Previously these tests had been allowed only for student athletes.

©2002 Associated Press  

[Viva Le Dissention]

Teacher, do you deny that extra curriculars are not a necessity to get into a top school?

If they are, then you force a kid to decide between his right to be free from unnecessary gov't intrusion and his future. There is no two ways around it.

[SouthernFreebird]

One more thing..... the most illegal and immoral person ran our Country for 8 years and hs yet to even be held accountable to the laws.......and the Goverment wants to hold my kids activities for ranson??? Unfreakinbelievable!

[KentuckyWoman]

Rules against drug use should reflect direct harm done to others and not just be an attempt to police people for their own good.

Welcome to the nanny-states of Amerika. Just take a look at "laws" that have already been put on the books that are for "our own good" or some perceived "common good". We're getting closer to being a Marxist society than we are to a Republic every darned day.

[Lent]

I'm staying out of the argument, but I will say that I did NOT partake of any alcohol whatsoever before being 21. Nor after,for that matter.

Well, I asked. Good for you by the way. Unfortunately, I did partake of the evil drink (thankfully there's a statute of limitation on these type of offences). I was never a drug user however. Casual or otherwise.

[Teacher317]

I wasn't aware that exercising my right to privacy was breaking the law.

VLD, there are NO consequences for those who do NOT do drugs. THEY can still get into Harvard. The DRUG-USER (that's against the law, by the way) is the only one who is red-flagged IF they fail the test. If they REFUSE the test (and exercise your rights), then they can STILL go to Harvard... you just can't play football, which there is no "right" to do. Get it? It's not "exercise your rights and lose Harvard", it's "use drugs and lose Harvard". Get it?

Your semantics need work.

[FreeTally]

Learning from a mistake allows one to speak out against that action.

Ah, but you are talking about a subjective assessment here. Speaking out against past "indiscretions" that involved gang banging, or theft, or arson would be approrpiate, since those are violations of individual rights, thus properly termed "mistakes". Just because one "thinks" that smoking pot or doing acid was a "mistake" doesn't make it a concrete, universal fact.

[Viva Le Dissention]

Oh, I see--so you think that ONLY people who use drugs wouldn't want to get tested.

I see--we don't have anything to hide if we're not breaking the law, right?

That's a good attitude. I hope you don't teach kids that crap. "Conform at all costs. Government is our friend. If you're innocent, you don't need rights."

I can't believe you are on a conservative forum. Take your Big Government cries elsewhere.

[FreeTally]

One more thing..... the most illegal and immoral person ran our Country for 8 years and hs yet to even be held accountable to the laws.......and the Goverment wants to hold my kids activities for ranson??? Unfreakinbelievable!

We have a government of the politicians, by the politicians and for the politicians. Its been that way for quite a while now.

[SouthernFreebird]

Oh please you don't really believe we have free speech do you? Try saying the N word.....or say One Nation Under GOD........ and many more I could think of but you get the point.

[Lent]

Right here, buddy. Just because you chose not to follow the law, don't project your behavior to everyone else. And if even if someone did break a rule, it hardly makes them hypocrites if they now look back and wish that they hadn't. Learning from a mistake allows one to speak out against that action.

It has nothing to do with your puritanical lifestyle. It has everything to do with moral and ethical failure as you are growing up. If your intolerance for same includes the State intruding and exploiting those early failures then you are one who wishes the State to baby, coddle, and micro-manage your existence and the existence of your children. Myself. I prefer to lead my child through moral persuasion rather than having the state babysit and punish my periodic failures in supervision. What about you?

[Basil Duke]

What are you, one o them hippie types what runs naked in the woods and smokes them funny cigarettes?

[Viva Le Dissention]

On second thought, I should have said, "Give thy thoughts no tongue."

Teacher, do you know from whence that quote came? It's Shakespeare, from Hamlet (Act I, Scene 3). Of course, I wouldn't have known that if I weren't in the English Club in HS, which I wouldn't have been if I would have had to been drug tested to join.

But it's a good thing we have drug testing. It makes us a happy land. Yay government!

[KentuckyWoman]

It's not "exercise your rights and lose Harvard", it's "use drugs and lose Harvard". Get it?

Not hardly. Not by a long shot. It's "refuse to bow down to unconstitutional search and seizure and be punished for it". These children are being presumed guilty without probable cause. We used to understand that road-blocks set up just to see if "law enforcement" COULD find anything illegal going on were unconstitutional but the last few years with the further errosion of the BOR, we seem to have conveniently forgotten the lessons of history. Germany was a Republic with a Constitution, too. NEVER forget that.

[Teacher317]

The right is against warrantless searches that lack probable cause.

Yep. You've got me on that count. The tests should not be random, they should be for those who are suspected of drug use by showing the typical symptoms and effects of drug-use.

VLD, is this also a violation of their "right" to football and Harvard?

Maybe a background check is a violation of our privacy when we apply for a job. We should have a Right to that job, too! /sarcasm>

[Lexington Green]

"What are you, one o them hippie types what runs naked in the woods and smokes them funny cigarettes?"

I'm high on freedom... maybe you ought to try some... it's addictive.

[KentuckyWoman]

Maybe a background check is a violation of our privacy when we apply for a job. We should have a Right to that job, too!

There is a HUGE difference between a private company making something a prerequisite of being considered for employement and the government mandating an across-the-board violation of the Fourth Amendment.

[Don Myers]

If kids are taking drugs, they should be found and the problem fixed. Adults are still supposed to be protecting and guiding the kids, not vice versa. Unfortunately, adults have largely given up both their rights and responsibilities in this nation. The result is quite obvious.

[Viva Le Dissention]

This isn't just football--it's anything. Math Counts, Key Club, National Honor Society (which I believe is the club in question in this case), Chemistry Club, driving to school, tennis team, student newspaper, etc. The list goes on and on.

More kids than ever are going to college, and that's great--but the colleges are also choosier than ever, thanks to an increased applicant pool. That means that not all 3.8s are created equal. If you are the admissions board at any school, and you see a kid that has a 3.8 and a 1500 on the SAT but nothing else on his application, and you see a kid who has 3.65 and 1450, but he was class president, editor of the student newspaper, captain of the Varsity Lacrosse team, and physics club member, who are you going to choose if you have only one spot?

Do you see the issue here?

[Alabama_Wild_Man]

"...they're working toward that very end..."

. . . and here I was prepared to Bump you on this thread !!

[Basil Duke]

I was just kidding. We're on the same side. In one of my earlier posts, one of the p*ss tester advocates slandered me as "dude" and inferred I was a crack head because of my audacity in believing that Americans have no business being lined up, stripped and forced to urinate in a cup.