cannabisnews.com: Drug Testing Debated





Drug Testing Debated
Posted by CN Staff on November 10, 2002 at 08:20:16 PT
By Ellen Henry and Andrew Laughlin
Source: South Bend Tribune 
The rate of drug abuse among teens is higher in the United States than anywhere else. Among high school seniors surveyed, 54 percent have tried illegal drugs, 80 percent have tried alcohol and 61 percent have used cigarettes, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.Drunken driving is the No. 1 cause of death among teenagers, and substance abusers often suffer from "loss of concentration, determination and social skills," according to the study.
Because of the lack of concentration and loss of work skills, substance abuse has become a major issue in schools.Many believe drug testing to be a solution to this problem, but it is not that simple. One reason is drug testing is said to violate two constitutional amendments: The Fourth Amendment, in which citizens are protected from unreasonable search and seizure; and the 14th Amendment, in which citizens are considered innocent unless proven guilty.Even so, on June 27, the U.S. Supreme Court voted random drug testing in public high schools is permissible. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-to-4 that schools could conduct drug tests on students involved in extracurricular activities, in addition to those in athletics.Locally, the Penn-Harris-Madison School Corp. was quick to reinstate its drug-testing policy. Close behind was School City of Mishawaka, which approved drug screening a few months later.Penn High officials can randomly screen athletes and teens who drive to school and park on campus. With any suspicion, a student may be sent down to the office and given a drug screening.Before the Supreme Court's decision, about 5 percent of the nation's public school districts conducted drug tests of student athletes.Michigan City High senior Lindsey Babb said, "I think that drug testing is a violation of your human rights. They should not do it in school."A second reason this subject is so controversial is because metabolisms differ and drug test results are influenced by the time and amount ingested.Urinalysis and Breathalyzer tests sometimes inaccurately reflect an individual's use or abuse of a controlled substance, particularly marijuana.Many school administrators say they believe drug testing in schools is harmless because of acts like the Drug-Free Schools and Committee Act, and drug abuse prevention programs, which help schools fight drug abuse.In Schail v. Tippecanoe County School Corp., a federal district court ruled that a drug analysis program for student athletes was justified by the school's need to ensure drug-free athletes.In this ruling, interscholastic athletics were considered a privilege, not a "property" or "liberty," which is what is protected by the 14th Amendment.Note: More schools implement random screening.By Ellen Henry and Andrew Laughlin, Michigan City and John Adams High Schools  Related Article:Random Drug Testing: The Sooner The Better By Chris Horner, New Prairie High School May I have a sample of your urine? New Prairie High students involved in extracurricular activities may be hearing that as soon as January of this year.But why should students be put through the embarrassing ritual of peeing in a cup or the less embarrassing process of getting their mouths swabbed? The only real question should be, "Why not?''The only reason the school wants to institute random drug testing is for the safety of its students. Students who test positive will have their parents notified and will be encouraged to participate in a drug rehabilitation program.The program also will act as a deterrent to anyone in an extracurricular activity or who is a student driver. A student may think twice before trying marijuana if they know they have a chance of being tested and a possibility their parents will find out about their drug experimentation.Another plus is the fact that the school does not even have to pay for the tests. All money will come from drug education funds that the school receives from the state government.Most parents also are in favor of testing. Out of 320 responses to the drug testing, 260 parents were for drug testing while 55 were opposed to it. That means 81 percent of parents approve of the plan and support it.Perhaps the best reason for random drug testing is the fact that the drugs being tested already are illegal. Since school is meant to prepare students for life, it is a good idea to catch future drug users early and put them on the right track. The school can help put them there by suggesting drug rehabilitation.Source: South Bend Tribune (IN)Author: Chris Horner, Ellen Henry and Andrew LaughlinPublished: November 10, 2002 Copyright: 2002 South Bend TribuneContact: vop sbtinfo.comWebsite: http://www.southbendtribune.com/CannabisNews Drug Testing Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/drug_testing.shtml
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Comment #11 posted by krutch on November 11, 2002 at 10:17:59 PT:
 interscholastic athletics are not privilege
If my taxes pay for these programs than my kids have a right to participate. This policy will keep interscholastic programs away from children who would benefit the most from participating. This does not ensure drug free schools. It ensures that no student who smoked pot within the last month will participate in interscholastic activities. Like all drug testing programs it will inadvertently increase the use of more dangerous drugs that leave the body faster. it is a mistake and a crime against everything this country stands for. Shame on the Supreme Court, shame on schools that participate,and shame on parents and students that support it.
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Comment #10 posted by John Tyler on November 10, 2002 at 20:52:06 PT
High School
I think kids today are too sophicated to tell government drug survey takers that yes they use drugs, what kind and and how often. I would either tell them I don't do drugs, or to just "go jump in the lake". (Are teen sex surveys done the same way also?) Have any of these surveys been verified for accuracy? High school sucks and it always has. They want to get good grades, but they don't want you to learn anything, because you might become dangerous, that is why it is so boring. Learning should be exciting, something you can't get enough of, school makes learning a drag. It is much better at college, or go to the library and study any subject on your own.  
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Comment #9 posted by FoM on November 10, 2002 at 15:36:56 PT
Friendly Reminder: Tonight CNN Presents - FRIED
CNN Presents: Fried - Sunday, 8 p.m., 11 p.m. - Monday, 2 a.m FriedIt goes by many names: fry, wet, dust and illy, to name just a few. In rough inner cities and upscale suburbs, dealers pitch it as the new drug -- a potent combination of embalming fluid, tobacco, marijuana and mint leaves. But they sometimes don't mention its most dangerous ingredient -- Phenyl Cyclohexyl Piperidine, or PCP, a chemical developed as an anesthetic but banned in the 1960s because its side effects were so terrible. Smoking this strange concoction leads to a tendency to strip naked in public, develop chronic schizophrenia, even explode into fits of homicidal rage. Use is soaring nationwide, with PCP-related emergency room admissions nationwide up 80 percent in two years. Correspondent Serena Altschul went to find out who is using this drug and what happens when they do in the CNN Presents documentary, "Fried." Chasing the highOn the hardscrabble streets of New Haven, Connecticut, "dust," as it's known here, is popular and relatively easy to find. For $20, a person can stay high for two hours on a strong, stinking blend containing some 36 chemicals, including PCP, embalming fluid (full of formaldehyde), sometimes rocket fuel, according to users. The drug causes numbness from head to toe, as well as dizziness and blurred vision. Even its most die-hard users advise against making it a habit, saying that doing so leads to a relentless, fruitless cycle of chasing the high they got the first time they smoked the drughttp://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/presents/http://www.cnn.com/2002/fyi/lesson.plans/11/07/fried.overview/http://www.cnn.com/2002/fyi/lesson.plans/11/07/fried.segments/http://www.cnn.com/2002/fyi/lesson.plans/11/07/fried.discussion/http://www.cnn.com/2002/fyi/lesson.plans/11/07/fried.activities/http://www.cnn.com/2002/fyi/lesson.plans/11/07/fried.resources/
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Comment #8 posted by DdC on November 10, 2002 at 15:35:10 PT
I'm sure this is accurate! He said sarcastically!
Among high school seniors surveyed, 54 percent have tried illegal drugs, 80 percent have tried alcohol and 61 percent have used cigarettes, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.First off if they are doing drugs can we trust their answers given to the surveyors while under the influence? Why would anyone admit to doing something that will bring more humiliating methods to control someone? 54% have tried illegal drugs? That would include alcohol to minors taken as a separate question. Alcohol represents 80% of the kids and not one dime is included in the $20 billion D.E.A.th budget. Everyone was honest in reporting, right? No athelete would ruin his chances for college by admitting to doing something illegal, would they? A scholar? Anyone knowing the results of that knowledge might keep them from a good job? Survey's by NIDA or I.G.Farben are stacked to get results. The same as testing hemp for medicine or ganja for fiber yields. Bogus Horsedung! So NIDA ask drugged up kids to get their statistics to punish other drugged up kids? To protect them. Has anyone ever ask one of us these questions? With the Twins selling beer every Sunday at halftime, why would any raging hormonal teen not get the message to Love the Budweizer. more than the chicks even? The profits of prohibition vs the health of the kids and the country. This is your brain on reality. Got any questions?Boycott companies who steal, then taste employees urine! What kind of degenerate people live in this country? How sick is it to eliminate Constitutional rights with flat out lies to perpetuate profits on misery? Very sick I'd say. So sick I can't think of anything in History any sicker. Even Hitler didn't check piss? Though today he would to get DNA to check Jewish lineage. Isolating cultures who use herbs in competition with chemicals. To use pesticidal genicide and cages and fines and stigma and scapegoating and pisstasting all to keep some poor dying person from natural medicine. Everyone has THC transmitters and receptors in their brains. Why? Everyone produces DMT in their brains, a hallucinagen. Shouldn't we all be busted?
http://www.cannabinoid.com/wwwboard/politics/binaries/29/29742.gifPeace, Love and Liberty or Pisstasting D.E.A.thDdC
Checks and Balances
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Comment #7 posted by DdC on November 10, 2002 at 14:29:16 PT
If I instituted drug testing at Cypress...
I would get a brick through my windshield, and I would deserve it. --T.J. Rogers, President, Cypress Semiconductor"A violently active, intrepid, brutal youth that is what I am after... I will have no intellectual training. Knowledge is ruin for my young men." Adolf Hitler quoted by John Gunther "The Nation" The assassins of youth...DARE the FRCn PDFA
http://pub3.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionwhyitstimetolegalize.showMessage?topicID=105.topicBush. Religious drug treatment in Texas
http://pub3.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionprohibitionistwodjunkies.showMessage?topicID=13.topicACS - Division of Analytical Chemistry - DAC Awards - John P. Walters 1980 Philanthropy Roundtable Tax Shelters Donating to FRCn, DARE & PDFA John P. Walters PresidentMore Prohibitionist DeceptionsOne of the examples given is the often cited statistic former president George Bush utlized in 1989: "Drug abuse among American workers costs businesses anywhere from $60 billion to $100 billion a year in lost productivity, absenteeism, drug-related accidents, medical claims and theft." Yet according to a 1989 assessment by NIDA, all such claims derive from a single study that grew out of a 1982 survey of 3,700 households.Official Corruption: Carlton TurnerIn all the research this author has done about the misapplication of public funds and trusts, nothing, it seems, compares with the either totally ignorant or willful manslaughter of fellow Americans by the bureaucrats and politicians of the following story: One Man & His Drug Scams...continued   Brain Damage and Dead Monkeys urlSoon after Turner left office, Nancy Reagan recommended that no corporation be permitted to do business with the Federal government without having a urine purity policy in place to show their loyalty. Just as G. Gordon Liddy went into high-tech corporate security after his disgrace, Carlton Turner became a rich man in what has now become a huge growth industry: urine-testing. This kind of business denies the basic rights of privacy, self-incrimination (Fifth Amendment) rights, unreasonable search and seizure, and the presumption of innocence (until proven guilty). Submission to the humiliation of having your most private body parts and functions observed by a hired voyeur is now the test of eligibility for private employment, or to contract for a living wage. Turner's new money-making scheme demands that all other Americans relinquish their fundamental right to privacy and self-respect. Dr. Heath/Tulane Study, 1974
The Hype: Brain Damage and Dead Monkeys 
http://www.jackherer.com/book/ch15.htmlUrine -- or You’re Out
http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/14/thread14611.shtmlThe Ultimate Hypocrasy
http://www.jackherer.com/book/ch14.htmlSupreme Court: Amphetamines for kids, yes - Cannabis for terminal cancer patients, no 
http://www.planetquake.com/politicalarena/archive/091001.htm#051501-1Alternatives to Pisstasting...FIT 2000 non-invasive 30-second impairment test is
directly relevant to employers interested in high quality, exacting, detail work, as well as general safety and quality, without violating the privacy of the employee.
http://www.pmifit.com/pmifit2.htmlRichard Rose alerted us to big brother's most recent actions against our nutritional use of the cannabis plant: Since urine testing equipment can't tell whether someone has eaten hemp seeds or smoked a joint, congress is working to make sure the law can't tell the difference either. This is an important issue to follow and get active on!B154 Bans Piss Test Adulterants http://www.canorml.org/leg/ab154.html
Assembly Committee Approves Bill to Ban Manufacture of Drug Testing Adulterants - AB 154
SACRAMENTO. The Assembly Public Safety Committee has approved a bill to ban drug testing aids. The bill, AB 154 by Assemblyman George Runner (R-Lancaster), would make it a misdemeanor to manufacture, sell or advertise "any substance with the specific intent to produce a false negative dr"There is a point at which the law becomes immoral and unethical. That point is reached when it becomes a cloak for the cowardice that dares not stand up against blatant violations of justice. A state that supresses all freedom of speech, and which by imposing the most terrible punishments, treats each and every attempt at criticism, however morally justified, and every suggestion for improvement as plotting to high treason, is a state that breaks an unwritten law." 
- Kurt Huber [The head of White Rose], killed by the Nazis in 1943. 
The Elkhorn Manifesto...Reality! What a Concept!
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Comment #6 posted by p4me on November 10, 2002 at 13:15:33 PT
drug industry is 4% of the economy
CorpWatch.org pegged the drug idndustry at $400 billion a year in this article that outlines how the $97 million in contributions will pay off big for the pharmafascists. You will not be allowed to buy cheaper medicine from Canada. There will be no patent law reform that lets these manufacturers get an automatic 39-month extension for even a frivolous lawsuit to extend their patents: http://www.corpwatch.org/news/PND.jsp?articleid=4790$400 billion out of a 10 trillion dollar economy means the pharmafascist get one in 25 of all dollars in the entire economy. People should be pissed off at these antics that can result in death.Wellits time to answer my own question again. I thought that the new transportation device marketed as Segway HT would have made an appearance on the city streets as a billboard motorized protester. Segway homepage is http://www.segway.com/ I thought that since even sick people people could cover a lot of urban ground with it they might put their little protest signs on the front of their Segway and get their message out. the reason this has not yet happenned is because they are still not available to the general public and real distibution is just about here. Popular Mechanics named it a superduper invention and will have it on the cover of the November 12th edition. I think Mr. Zeese and company will find it easy to get a little mobile protesting in during lunch and might could make it to the fence at the White House and eating lunch along the way. I wonder how far they could get on a 15 minute break. That thing is goig to be doing some scooting and some mobile informing/reforming/protesting. Boy, I never had a double slash word brfore. Can you do that. Oh well, on to four.The Segways are coming. Wait until the rental shops get uptown. A new market for new kind of bumpersticker. The times are changing,1
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Comment #5 posted by p4me on November 10, 2002 at 11:56:50 PT
Everyone must speak strainght and simple
Drunken driving is the No. 1 cause of death among teenagers, and substance abusers often suffer from "loss of concentration, determination and social skills," according to the study.Let's get all motivated and learn how to live off of $8 an hour kids. We need to teach kids how they can afford to get the hell out of the house and live with other people and share an apartment even if it takes 8 kids in a unit. They need to learn how to cook some basic things. They can cook in batches and save electricity. Yes kids, you just have to learn straight, think straight, and walk a straight line while you and your laid-off dad working for the temp company with no insurance, learn together how to make it on $8 an hour.You can can increase your salary some places by working second or third shift. Third shift is a great place to make shift manager collecting other peoples money. People buy stuff all the time. It is ashame they don't let cashiers at least have a fold up stool or a pull out seat at the cash register. But when you can say stand up until I'm tired and the 39-hour work week part-time that gets crapped out of benefits, and the modern day American peasant takes it with a false smile, why?Yep kids you could even teach the older people something. Just say, "Dad, 30% of us at school smoke tobacco. A lot of kids drink. Then everyone else pushes past the real gateway drugs to sell their addictive substances and then you have marijuana. There is no reason to test anyone. Almost everyone takes something. What are you testing for? Just assume everyone takes something and try to figure out why they need testing. All they are doing is telling us that we need to learn a new game called DRUG TESTING. It's like testing to see if water is wet. Why are they doing this when they don't even have enough sense to quit lying and they don't even care if people chose the dumbest and deadliest of all paths and take up smoking. And dad, at $8 an hour I cannot afford your national debt, and if you cannot pay for everything now how will we at $8 an hour with a trillion$ added every three years. You screwed up America, dad. Cnan't they come out and say DON'T ABUSE DRUGS, DAD?"1
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Comment #4 posted by FoM on November 10, 2002 at 11:13:53 PT
Ron
I looked around the Internet and couldn't find anything that could answer your question so far. I believe alcohol is 8 hours and Meth 3 days. If that's right Cocaine should be about the same as Meth. Cannabis will show up for as long as a month. This isn't anything but my opinion though.
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Comment #3 posted by Ron Bennett on November 10, 2002 at 10:24:52 PT
Testing Forces Folks to Dangerous Alternatives
Many school administrators say they believe drug testing in schools is harmless because of acts like the Drug-Free Schools and Committee Act, and drug abuse prevention programs, which help schools fight drug abuse."harmless"...guess they've not noticed the increase in methamphetamine use and other substance use, many of which are far more dangerous, that are more difficult to detect in drug tests; easier to hide/carry as well than cannabis.Anyone who thinks this is nonsense only has to take some time reading through http://www.methinfo.com/ ... one of my forgotten "protest" sites that has taken on a life of its own, but I digress ... anyways, for example, much of the allure of meth is that it's easy to hide/smuggle, more difficult to detect in drug tests compared to say cannabis, relatively easy to manufacture, and of course very profitable.Bottom line is drug testing is far from "harmless"...it forces many people to far more dangerous alternatives, such as meth.Ronp.s. I'm still working on a chart for common psychoactive substances (drugs) and how long they are detectable in drug tests...if one has any such info, please reply here with details...thanks!
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Comment #2 posted by canaman on November 10, 2002 at 10:17:08 PT
National Public Radio
Just did a great interview with Dr. Mitch Earleywine. He discounted All the government propaganda. Saying the science says the illegality of cannabis is the problem not the solution. But we knew that. Good listen. They just put the audio online.http://discover.npr.org/rundowns/rundown.jhtml?prgId=10&prgDate=current Marijuana: 
Host Liane Hansen talks with Dr. Mitch Earleywine about his book Understanding Marijuana: A New Look at the Scientific Evidence(Oxford University Press; ISBN: 0195138937). 
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Comment #1 posted by aocp on November 10, 2002 at 08:52:55 PT
the hitler youth speak out
Another plus is the fact that the school does not even have to pay for the tests. All money will come from drug education funds that the school receives from the state government.Absolutely brilliant, my young fascist!! What a twit. This money doesn't get picked off the money trees, you know. If you're so in favor of peeing on command, perhaps your borg-like parents would like to cough up the cash themselves so others who don't believe in this crap aren't saddled with the cost through their taxes, hmmmm?This is why i find Canada so appealing. At least they realize the idiocy of drug testing and have ruled against it.Perhaps the best reason for random drug testing is the fact that the drugs being tested already are illegal. Since school is meant to prepare students for life, it is a good idea to catch future drug users early and put them on the right track. The school can help put them there by suggesting drug rehabilitation.What is up with all the "putting" people somewhere. Apparently, you don't understand what rehabilitation is all about. Forced rehabilitation is called jail. Don't you worry, though. I'm sure your support for this will lead our leaders to think about what other things are in the way of the next generation's being "on the right track." You might fall under the war on fatty foods or something similar in the future and can stew in the mess you've created.This does nothing but put another nail in public school "education". What a waste. I'm still looking forward to taking my education certificate and teaching in Canada. I will not teach this sort of filth and call it "education". I'd die first.
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