Drug testing in schools

I think that drug testing isn’t the best way of testing wether students are using illegal substances. The tests may show which illegal drugs they used such as marijuana or heroine etc., but it doesn’t exactly show if kids have been abusing alchohol because that can leave the body system in 24 hours and would not show up on tests. In result of drug testing kids would be more likely to use alchohol which can be a more serious drug since it could produce more accidents and such. The  blue sheet I have gives insight of this by expalining “Drug testing says very little about who is misusing or abusing drugs…Additionally, students misusing other harmful substances not detected by drug tests will not be identified” (Blue Sheet). Drug testing can only go so far and it doesn’t tell everything a person has done in the past 24 hours.

In some cases it does though, some medications people such as anitbiotics and medications for allergies have come up positive for certain illegal drugs. Such a case happened when student Mike Brown was randomly drug tested when he was prescribed medicine and the schools test came up positive for him taking cocaine. Later they drug tested him randomly for six months “…and began to feel harassed and stigmitized as a result” (Blue Sheet). After being yelled at for not having enough urine to make a sixth sample the Browns decided to remove him from the drug testing program making Mike Brown unable to participate in extracurricular activities. Some tests are wrong and could really hurt kids like it did with the Brown case. That’s why there shouldn’t be drug testing.