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Mrs. Longman
English 1101
20 December 2018
Drug testing in schools has become a huge deal for America within the past few
years. School districts across the country have decided to make it their responsibility to
keep kids “in line” and away from unsolicited drug use that could end up possibly ruining
their lives. Schools are not required by law to do this, so only select districts choose to
practice the testing. It’s time to dig deep into the facts and find out why exactly it is that
schools deem it necessary to drug test their students, although it has shown to be a failure
in most districts.
was taken by students in both districts that have mandatory drug testing, and don’t. When
asking the students if they planned on using illegal drugs within the next twelve months,
the results were surprisingly similar between the two. In fact, the students who did have
mandatory testing, had a slightly higher percentage of students claim that they plan on
using drugs within the next year. Within the tested schools, thirty four percent of the
students said that they planned on using drugs, while the non tested schools came in at a
close thirty three percent (The Effectiveness, pg 1). The National Center for Education
Evaluation also stated that there was no difference in the number of people who had
already tried tried drugs within the two school districts, showing that the testing hasn’t
really made a difference in whether the students resort to drug use or not (The
Effectiveness, pg 1).
Not only has the drug testing within schools seem to be failing as a deterrent, it
has also become very costly for school districts, causing many programs to reduce in size
or even stop all together. According to an article in Star Tribune, drug testing in a Florida
school district had to be shut down due to such a great cost. The average price of a drug
test can span from anywhere between $15 to $35 dollars. The district had tested six
hundred students, and it had brought their expenses up over $100,000. After only a year,
the program was suspended due to a lack of funding (Jury Is Out, 1). If you do the math
and factor in just how many students usually test positive, the cost of finding a student
that tests “positive” is outrageous. School drug tests often come back negative, with only
few positive at a time. For every 125 students, 1 student will test usually fail a drug test.
This would mean that schools are spending nearly $3,000 to find one kid that smoked a
little marijuana a couple weeks ago (Ingraham, 2). Since the tests cost so much, and seem
to be nearly ineffective, isn’t there a better way that our school districts could be
spending money? The people paying taxes for school funding have no say in whether
these schools are testing students or not. With all of the money that these schools are
putting towards drug testing, couldn’t they be putting it towards something a little more
useful and effective? Classroom renovations, new sports fields / courts, drug prevention
programs such as guest speakers and drug education courses, working on a more
handicap accessible school, and lots of other alternatives. This large chunk of money
could be used in so many other ways that could be effective and truly helpful for a school
students and their school administrators / teachers. When students do actually have a drug
issue, some students used to go to their teachers and administrators to get help and sober
up, but now that their is random testing and punishments for drug abuse in schools,
students are afraid to go to anyone with their issues in fear of punishment. Drug testing
makes students view their administrators as someone who is always who is always
viewing them as a suspect, and they are basically guilty until proven innocent (School
drug testing, 4)
Drug testing in schools is most often targeted at student athletes in most cases.
Schools drug test the student athletes because that is the largest population among all of
the kids. Around 88% of schools that have implemented random drug testing programs,
test their student athletes. Other students aren’t tested nearly as hard. For example, among
the schools that test, have chosen to test 62% of students in extracurricular activities, 39%
of students that are on probation, 32% of students that drive to school, and 30% of the
entire population (Ingraham, 1). So why is it that the student athletes are hit so hard with
the testing? It’s possible that many students aren’t participating in sports anymore simply
because they don’t want to be drug tested by their schools. If we are discouraging
Honor Society, etc… then we will have a real problem on our hands. Children will
become more secluded from society and also most likely start doing more drugs as a
Not only is the testing of students a very costly operation, but it can also be
racking for some students to be forced to urinate in a cup for someone to examine them.
On many cases, the students have never even seen drugs in their life but still find the
testing to leave them uneasy. Imagine urinating in a cup for someone to examine you, and
know everything that is in your system. This can be a nerve wracking thought.
Drug testing can also possibly be seen as a violation of students rights. A school is
responsible for the students only while they are on school grounds, or on field trips in
some cases. Still, the school technically should have no authority in what a student does
after hours and off of school property, right? Schools say that they test in order to keep
kids safe and allow them to take advantage of their academics to the fullest capabilities.
So this would mean that coming to school high on a drug would obviously affect your
learning ability. But this isn’t what is showing up on the drug tests. The most commonly
used drug among high schoolers and the general population is marijuana. Marijuana is
known to stay in the system for a very long time compared to other drugs that are harder
and more dangerous. Through testing, marijuana can be traced through urine up to thirty
days, blood up to two weeks, and hair up to ninety days. This obviously means that a
student could have possibly smoked marijuana nearly a month ago off of school grounds
and was not high on school property, therefore not affecting their learning ability in any
way whatsoever, but the school will still kick them off of sports teams and / or punish
them in school. Shouldn’t it not be any of the schools business what happens after school
hours as long as it doesn’t cause any distractions or problems on school grounds? Schools
privacy in my mind. Some students are subject to taking medications for personal
problems such as depression, ADHD, ADD, etc… Not everyone wants the school to
know that they are on these medications as they could find it to be an embarrassment and
Even if kids were using drugs while still in school, why are we punishing them?
When it comes to drug abuse and addiction, punishing someone with suspension or
taking their parking pass is not going to help them. Most high schoolers would just take
the time off of school from suspension to get into even more trouble. If schools are going
to test their students, they should not be punished when they fail them. Instead, they
should be given counseling to help them leave drugs in the past and find new activities
With all of these drug testing programs being implemented in schools, you would
think that the health and decision making of students would be at an all time high, but
you would have thought wrong. Although students are being tested for drug abuse, some
of the worst drugs don’t even show up on these tests. Alcohol, cigarettes, LSD, and
multiple other substances that poison your body are now being used more often simply
because they don’t show up on these drug screens that the schools have decided to put in
place. High Schoolers are becoming alcoholics hardcore drug addicts because they were
afraid of THC showing up on their drug test. This is turning a small problem of a student
experimenting with a little marijuana into being binge drinkers, and being addicted to
hard drugs such as LSD. Most people would probably rather have left it with some
marijuana use.
After all of the research and personal experience, I can tell you that drug testing is
not the necessary route in school districts. The facts show that testing the student
population is a costly process that is showing little to no progress in helping stop drug use
by students. I believe that the schools should be investing their money in other areas that
actually gives back to the community, rather than just shoveling their money into an
unproven process. I am genuinely amazed that the drug testing in schools hasn’t been
questioned by the citizens of the districts up to this day. Review of these testing programs
in schools needs to most definitely be done, and possibly even taken out of schools for
good. If everyone was a little more informed on how much it really costs, and how little
it actually helps, there would be a call for change across the United States in terms of
Works Cited
Ingraham, Christopher. “School Drug Tests: Costly, Ineffective, and More Common than
www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/27/schools-drug-tests-costly-
“Jury Is out on Effectiveness of Drug Testing in Schools.” Star Tribune, Star Tribune, 21
Jan. 2014. startribune.com/jury-is-out-on-effectiveness-of-drug-testing-in-schools.
Sciences (IES) Home Page, a Part of the U.S. Department of Education, National Center
“School Drug Testing Programs Do More Harm than Good." Teen Drug Abuse, edited by David
Context,
http://link.galegroup.com.sinclair.ohionet.org/apps/doc/EJ3010436257/OVIC?u=dayt304