Are student drug testing programs effective at deterring use?
• Yes, random student drug testing is effective in deterring drug use. Most students are constantly subjected to peer pressure and bombarded with media messages from movies, music, television, and the Internet that drug use is a normal behavior, a rite of passage for teens without consequence. To the relief of teens, drug testing removes the push of peer pressure. It distributes the burden of their decision not to use drugs between them and the adults in their lives. According to a study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, a school in Oregon that randomly drug tested student-athletes had a rate of drug use that was one-quarter that of a comparable school with no drug testing policy. In another study, Hunterdon Central Regional High School in New Jersey saw significant reductions in 20 of 28 drug use categories after two years of a drug testing program; e.g., cocaine use by seniors dropped from 13 percent to 4 percent.
So the summit was far from objective, but I did enjoy one presentation by Bryan S. Finkle, a drug-testing authority with an impressive page-long bio that included stints at Scotland Yard and as past president of the International Association of Forensic Toxicologists. Finkle gave a talk and answered questions on current drug testing technology. Much of the conference seemed to advocate student drug testing as a clearly good option, and Finkle didn’t explicitly contradict that notion, but he did lay out some of the controversies and consequences in a straight forward manner.
