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Drug Testing’s Mixed Returns

By Kellyn Brown

As Whitefish High School makes a strong push to begin drug testing its students, school officials supporting the policy should heed the wisdom they pass on to many of their pupils: Don’t overreact.

That is not to advocate complacency, especially if the drug problem there is as grave as what was described at an April 22 school board meeting: “For those of you who are against the policy, I hope you have better ideas … because I guarantee you don’t know what’s going on at that school,” School Resource Officer Rob Veneman said.

I have no better ideas, nor have I spent time in the hallways of Whitefish High School. But to implement such a sweeping policy, where anyone who participates in extra-curricular activities – from band to basketball – can be randomly drug tested appears like a quantum leap between two extremes. And a risky one at that in the affluent, and often litigious, city of Whitefish.

While four other, much smaller, Montana schools have similar drug-testing policies, most at the meeting agreed with Whitefish parent and licensed counselor Andy Hudek, who said, “I don’t think we’re Colstrip. I think we’ll have a Constitutional challenge in Whitefish.”

Even if the drug-testing policy is approved by the board, which by no means is guaranteed, the matter would likely move all the way to the Montana Supreme Court. And Whitefish High School, in essence, would be a case study for the rest of the state. This would take months to resolve, if not years, and by the time a decision is rendered a new class of students will have enrolled in the school.

Thus, school officials must believe the rampant drug use is a product of the environment, not just isolated to the current crop of students, and the problem will persist in years to come. But whether drug testing will change the culture besetting Whitefish teenagers has, to say the least, drawn mixed reviews. Some studies suggest testing simply drives students to use fewer drugs and drink more alcohol, which can be harder to detect long term. Not to mention the resentment random testing will instill in many students.

Several school districts across the country that have launched drug-testing policies have faced stiff resistance from students and parents alike. The matter is divisive and, moreover, murky in regard to the law.

While the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that high schools can randomly test, state courts have been fickle. Just last month, for example, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled that suspicion-less drug testing of high school students violated the “privacy clause” in that state’s constitution. Without moonlighting as an attorney and trying to interpret Montana code annotated, our Constitution has a reputation for protecting personal liberties.

Whitefish school officials should be commended for moving slowly on the issue and inviting public input. Superintendent Jerry House has said the school board is also still researching drug-testing policies and considering other options than random, such as suspicious-based.

It would benefit proponents, opponents and students if the parties reached a general consensus on what can be done to curtail drug use, rather than have a far-reaching policy end up in the state Supreme Court’s hands.

But maybe that’s unavoidable and the drug problem is so widespread in the school that the only answer is random drug testing. If that’s the case, along with targeting students, school officials should thoroughly vet the causes of an environment that has somehow made Whitefish a haven for teenage drug use. Many would like to know.