A Texas School District Implements Random Drug Testing

Want to join the robotics team? You'll need to pass a drug test first.

The Bushland Independent School District in Texas doesn't have a substantial drug problem, but students as young as 12 will have to submit to drug testing if they wish to pursue their normal extracurricular activities.

Bushland students and parents have received a letter outlining the new program. Students participating in extracurricular activities or requesting a permit to park on campus will be tested at the beginning of the school year and could receive up to 10 random tests throughout the year. Under the new rules, the teams and clubs that will now require testing include "football, volleyball, cross country, basketball, wrestling, golf, track, power-lifting, cheerleading, band, choir, theatre, UIL Academics, student council, lead council, FCCLA, robotics, VASE, speech and debate, FFA, chess, Ace Club, United Way Youth Council, gaming club, yearbook, Falcon Friends and 4H."

If a student who consented to the first test then refuses to submit a saliva sample in a subsequent random test, the school will deem his or her test positive and will administer the associated consequences.

A positive test will be confirmed by a second test. Students will then have a two-day window to either challenge the results or provide a medical explanation. The district can request a student's medical history from a doctor if it wishes to verify the explanation. If the positive result stands, students be suspended from activities, practices, competitions, parking, and social events held by the school. Students can appeal the decision, but the suspensions will stand during the appellate process.

"The number one reason why we're implementing the policy is to help our students have a drug-free school," Superintendent Chris Wigington tells Reason. "We also want to take away the peer pressure—we want to give them a reason to say 'no,'" he adds, suggesting that students could use the drug policy as a way to tell peers that they're uninterested in drugs and alcohol.

According to Wigington, the district isn't facing a big drug problem. It implemented the new policy, he says, to be "proactive."

On a national level, a 2018 report from the National Institute on Drug Abuse found drug use among teenagers at one of its lowest points in 20 years.

Comments

[meto]

If one of the hijackers had just showed up in the ER with cutaneous anthrax, which would not be “skin irritation “ or a single lesion and not been diagnosed and aggressively treated he would probably have died…………………… http://xurl.es/djl69

[Ron]

Un needed over reaction scare mongering by people who see a reefer behind every flower.

[Ron]

and this from a person who lives in an area where there is almost a pot grow behind every other bush in this county. I have not been on a county road in years where you can't find a pot grow but then i am in California

[Last of the Shitlords]

WA here. And we grow it by the kiloton here on the east side of the state. I mean, there’s very good reason that WA is the Evergreen State.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

"The district can request a student's medical history from a doctor if it wishes to verify the explanation."

So students aren't protected by HIPAA?

[Kevin Smith]

You can request anything you want, doesn't mean you'll get it

[Brandybuck]

Government regulations only apply to common people. Schools are a part of government and can do whatever the fuck they want.

[0x1000]

> Schools are a part of government and can do whatever the fuck they want.

If you disagree with this you want an uneducated populous. Government schools are the only way things can work, period.

[Dillinger]

one gov.agency --> another

[Davy C]

The student is likely required to sign a waiver allowing the district access (or else they'll be excluded from those extracurriculars.) Nothing in HIPAA prevents doctors from giving information which the patient has explicitly allowed to be shared.

[Zeb]

This sort of thing seems dumb and counterproductive (and also an unreasonable invasion of privacy). It's basically asking kids to choose between smoking weed and participating in school activities. Some kids are going to do drugs. Seems better to keep them engaged in wholesome educational activities too.

[Juice]

I'll bet the kids could all be raging alcoholics and still be allowed to participate.

[Verbum Vincet]

Really? Alcohol isn't a drug - it's a widely accepted social lubricant and a ubiquitous component of many refreshing beverages. What's wrong with kids having a drink or three? Much like morbid obesity and Ritalin, drunkeness is a natural milestone on the journey to American adulthood.

You see, when Prohibition failed the term 'drug' was amended to refer only to compounds whose sole use is getting 'high.' Alcohol doesn't get one high, so that's a no-brainer. The real threat is street drugs: Cannabis, 'Ludes, smack and poppers. When the ball got rolling on the War Against REAL Drugs, our nation was facing a dire Cannabis threat. We ran the very real risk of being overtaken by lunatic jazz musicians and cocaine-fueled negro rapists!

[Sheldonius Rex]

>cocaine fueled negro rapists...
What's only 13 but also over 50?

[Rik Bitter]

Bong hits and Battlebots sounds like a good time. Might help with the social awkwardness too.

[Zeb]

I did a lot of technical theater stuff in high school. For a few productions I had an assistant whose main job was to go find weed.

[Untermensch]

This school needs an enema.

But more seriously, until “good” kids refuse to comply and are willing to walk away and let the school suffer, this won't change. But all it would take would be the football team (this being Texas and all) refusing to comply, and suddenly the tune would change.

[Uncle Jay]

Couldn't the school have a written test instead of drug test instead?

[Don't look at me!]

None of them can write.

[TripK]

I'm not surprised Texas is moving backwards in time as the rest of us move forwards.

[AlbertP]

I fully support drug testing for chess team members. It's well-known that such members use such cover for smuggling drugs and guns into their schools. Or WORSE!! (sarc font off)

[Rastaman]

As a STEM grad let me suggest how very easy it is to fake the piss test! If you are smart enough to build a robot hopefully you can figure out how to tell bureaucrats to go fuck themselves with a little slight of hand.

[Longtobefree]

I will bet your next paycheck that no civics teacher will point out to the kids that the 'penalty' for a positive test is the same as choosing not to participate in any of the listed activities. If any of the kids in that school read this, get all your friends to exert 'peer pressure' on every single person they know to strike; do not participate in ANY school activities for the next year. See what the policy is after some federal funding gets cut.
Be sure to point out that there is no reality; refusing a test will be defined as a positive result, and you record falsified by the administration to include a positive drug result that never occurred. Refuse the first and all subsequent "requests" for any bodily fluids.

[Real Books]

I think this is fair. After all, any student or parent can order a drug test of any teacher, administrator or school board member at any time.

Right?

[GroundTruth]

What the students, and their parents, need to learn to say "no" to is unwarranted drug testing. How is this not a Fifth Amendment violation? Granted, the various activities are not obligatory, but being in school is (unless Mom and Dad have the $$$ to shell out for private school).

[Last of the Shitlords]

This is all bullshit. Extracurricular activities should be largely outsourced to private groups. As they are not. school districts engage in a lot of invasive mission creep.

[Sheldonius Rex]

They would be better off drug testing the unionized public indoctrination camp staff and firing those whom fail instead.

That said, when you take government handouts you dance when the G man tells ya. If parents want their children to be free from government invasions of privacy, they should refuse to allow their children to go to government school.

This is also why drug testing welfare whores should be done. First you get to thin the ranks of the disgusting moocher class, and secondly reenforce the social recognizition that government money is not a right. When you take it you're their whore. If they say succ, you succ.

[Edwood]

Teaching our children that unwarranted searches are A-OK.

[John Redman]

Enhanced technology has given control freaks tools to augment their "I'm Important" fantasies. Where is the death penalty when we really need it?

[John Redman]

Do I, in real day to day existence, believe that control freaks deserve death? Well, yes I do. They cause most of the harm in this world, more than fires, floods, earthquakes, criminals. Ask T. S. Eliot about self-important people. Their actions murder innocents. Let them suffer instead. Let innocents have liberty.