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Drug Testing News

No Sign That Drug Testing Deters Students' Drug Use

Sat May 17, 8:57 AM ET
By GREG WINTER The New York Times

Drug testing in schools does not deter student drug use any more than doing no screening at all, the first large-scale national study on the subject has found.

The United States Supreme Court has twice empowered schools to test for drugs first among student athletes in 1995, then for those in other extracurricular activities last year. Both times, it cited the role that screening plays in combating substance abuse as a rationale for impinging on whatever privacy rights students might have.

But the new federally financed study of 76,000 students nationwide, by far the largest to date, found that drug use is just as common in schools with testing as in those without it.

"It suggests that there really isn't an impact from drug testing as practiced," Dr. Lloyd D. Johnston, a study researcher from the University of Michigan, said. "It's the kind of intervention that doesn't win the hearts and minds of children. I don't think it brings about any constructive changes in their attitudes about drugs or their belief in the dangers associated with using them."

The prevalence of drug use in schools that tested for drugs and those that did not was so similar that it surprised the researchers, who have been paid by the government to track student behavior for nearly 30 years and whose data on drug use is considered highly reliable.

The study, published last month in The Journal of School Health, a peer-reviewed publication of the American School Health Association, found that 37 percent of 12th graders in schools that tested for drugs said they had smoked marijuana in the last year, compared with 36 percent in schools that did not. In a universe of tens of thousands of students, such a slight deviation is statistically insignificant, and it means the results are essentially identical, the researchers said.

Similarly, 21 percent of 12th graders in schools with testing said they had used other illicit drugs like cocaine or heroin in the last year, while 19 percent of their counterparts in schools without screening said they had done so.

The same pattern held for every other drug and grade level. Whether looking at marijuana or harder drugs like cocaine and heroin, or middle school pupils compared with high school students, the fact that their schools tested for drugs showed no signs of slowing their drug use.

While it is possible that schools that imposed screening had had even higher rates of use before, the researchers said that was extremely unlikely because they controlled for behavioral factors normally associated with substance abuse like truancy and parental absence.

"Obviously, the justices did not have the benefit of this study," said Graham Boyd, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites) who argued the case against drug testing before the Supreme Court last year. "Now there should be no reason for a school to impose an intrusive or even insulting drug test when it's not going to do anything about student drug use."

But other researchers contend that the urinalysis conducted by schools is so faulty, the supervision so lax and the opportunities for cheating so plentiful that the study may prove only that schools do a poor job of testing.

"That's like blaming antibiotics if you didn't take them properly, or blaming the doctor who prescribed them," said Dr. Linn Goldberg, a professor of medicine at Oregon Health and Science University, who conducted a much more limited study on two Oregon high schools last year. It found that intensive, Olympic-grade testing could reduce drug use.

Still, Dr. Goldberg argued, even his study did not prove that testing limits consumption. "Schools should not implement a drug testing program until they're proven to work," he added. "They're too expensive. It's like having experimental surgery that's never been shown to work."

Most schools have shied away from drug testing. The Michigan study found that only 18 percent of the nation's schools did any kind of screening from 1998 to 2001, most of them high schools. While a broad swath of the school population may be screened, from honor students in extracurricular activities to students on probation, most of the testing focuses on those who are suspected of using drugs.

Such tests do not violate the Fourth Amendment safeguards against unreasonable searches and seizures, the Supreme Court has ruled, because children have limited expectations of privacy, the tests are not overly intrusive and because they are likely to deter substance abuse. Writing for the court in 1995, Justice Antonin Scalia (news - web sites) described the "efficacy of this means for addressing the problem" of student drug use as "self-evident."

Seven years later, Justice Clarence Thomas (news - web sites) restated the court's opinion, ruling that "the need to prevent and deter the substantial harm of childhood drug use provides the necessary immediacy for a school testing policy."

Though the study may call those presumptions into question, it does not mean that drug testing is any less constitutional, said the National School Boards Association, which filed legal briefs in support of testing to the court. Given the other constitutional grounds for testing elaborated by the justices, particularly the role of schools as guardians of their students' well-being, the association maintains that schools should continue to test, if they so choose.

"I'm not saying school districts should ignore that study," Naomi Gittins, an association lawyer, said. "I think it's a good idea that schools take a look at that study. It's an important decision that they're making."

The study would not have swayed Randall Aultman, former principal of tiny Vernonia High School in Oregon whose decision to screen its athletes led to the Supreme Court's 1995 ruling. Drug use was so rampant among his students that he says "we had to do something drastic," without even knowing whether it was legal, much less effective.

"I don't think that drug testing works all the time, in all situations," Mr. Aultman said. "And the truth is there were many kids who said, `Yeah, we quit while we were in season and once the season was over we went back to using drugs.' "

Even so, Mr. Aultman added, other students quit for life, and "at that time, it really worked."

The Michigan study was financed by grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health (news - web sites), as well as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which supports drug testing in schools. It collected data on testing policies at 722 middle and high schools, and drew on anonymous surveys from 30,000 8th graders, 23,000 10th graders and 23,000 12th graders, an enormous statistical undertaking that may not be matched for years. The researchers assume that some will lie about their drug use, but say that the effects are insignificant.

There is at least one important limitation of the Michigan study. It does not differentiate between schools that do intensive, regular random screening and those that test only occasionally. As a result, it does not rule out the possibility that the most vigilant schools do a better job of curbing drug use.

"One could imagine situations where drug testing could be effective, if you impose it in a sufficiently draconian manner that is, testing most kids and doing it frequently," Dr. Johnston, the Michigan researcher, said. "We're not in a position to say that wouldn't work."

The Supreme Court, however, has not ruled on whether testing all students, even those not in extracurricular activities, is constitutional.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse said it would take several more such studies before any certainty about the efficacy of testing can be established. More research is being explored, it said, but the results are probably years away.

Even so, some took the study as proof that education is the most effective weapon against substance abuse. They said that while screening may give rise to a culture of resistance, in which students take pride in beating the test, the best results come from convincing children that most children do not use drugs, making drugs less appealing.

"At best, testing could be a band-aid, and certainly not an answer," Tom Hedrick, director and founding member of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, said.