Should Schools Test for Drugs of Abuse? Recent U.S. Congress hearings into steroid use by professional athletes also focused attention on suspected widespread use of steroids by adolescent athletes, with concerns expressed about the long-term effects on young people's health of the use of steroids or other drugs. Concern about drug use by adolescents has prompted many schools to institute random testing of student athletes and in some cases of all students who participate in extra-curricular activities, and there have been challenges to such testing programs in state and federal courts. The United States Supreme Court ruled in June 2002, for example, that public schools have the authority to perform random drug tests on all middle and high school students who participate in extra-curricular activities. In December 2007, the Committee on Substance Abuse and the Council on School Health of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued a policy statement on the role of schools in curbing illicit substance abuse. "As the physical, social, and psychological 'home away from home' for most youths, schools naturally assume a primary role in substance abuse education, prevention, and early identification," the statement notes. But the pediatric groups are cautious about the use of random drug testing as a component of drug prevention programs, calling for more rigorous scientific evaluation to determine if such testing is effective in curbing drug use and to evaluate possible harm. In any case, the statement stresses, if drug testing is conducted, it should never be in isolation—a comprehensive assessment and therapeutic management program should be in place for the student who tests positive, and students undergoing intervention should be given privacy, with information limited to the student's parents and physician, and only those school officials who "need to know." Here are excerpts from the December 2007 AAP policy statement: The benefits and risks of drug testing as a component of comprehensive programs to prevent or reduce substance abuse in such groups as nonusers, first-time and/or occasional users, and more frequent or addicted users must be determined by scientific studies. Implementation of random drug testing of students should await these results. Schools may adopt a variety of alternatives to drug testing, including offering after-school programs, incorporating life-skills training into drug education curricula, helping parents become better informed, providing counseling, identifying problem behaviors for early intervention, and promptly referring students to health care professionals for assessment and evaluation. Some societal leaders support broad drug testing as an aid in the prevention of drug use and possible early identification of youth who have used drugs, thereby facilitating appropriate assessment and therapeutic referral. Others, including most parents and physicians, are concerned that school-based drug testing could unnecessarily label or stigmatize a child and compromise personal and family privacy. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) applies to medical facilities, but children and adolescents do not have the same safeguards to privacy of medical information at school. Recording positive drug-test results on students' permanent educational records (under guidelines of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which are accessible to many school personnel, could have negative and long-term consequences. Strict attention to issues of confidentiality must be ensured. |
