How about kids who are dangerously overweight? There is overwhelming evidence that this is setting them up for all sorts of problems that will haunt them the rest of their lives. Should the school district start mandating diets for any overweight UIL participants? Its all about protecting children, right, and helping them achieve their potential?

And LK is correct, alcohol is by far the most pervasive and dangerous substance in our public schools and this test does nothing to touch that, rendering the whole thing kind of pointless on a lot of levels. Well, except steering our kids toward a more socially accepted if just as harmful vice. Once again, let me state, if something happens AT SCHOOL it is appropriate for the school to act…the school grounds are their proper domain and if the school authorities are not acting accordingly (such as letting teachers drink on school trips, although I am skeptical how often this happens) then you have a whole other issue, an issue, once again, hardly touched by your random drug testing.

Ultimately, do we really want to send the schools through this door and out into the public? What is the school’s function? Is it to make sure YOUR kid is not smoking pot (once again, if this happens at school it is an entire other issue)? Funny, I always thought of that sort of thing as a parenting responsibility. You suspect your kid is doing drugs you pay for the test yourself, don’t ask the state to pick up the bill.

But, if this is such a good idea for the school to do, I propose we begin a random drug testing program for everyone in the city limits who has a drivers license (it is a privilege right?). We could just pull random names each month and send the police to their house or place of work and make them pee in a cup. Anyone who fails gets their picture pasted on a billboard on I-35 and they lose the right to drive for 45 days. As a voter and tax payer in this town I want to hold my fellow citizens to a “higher level” too…

I have always and will continue to oppose random testing of a person for any reason. Back in my days of law enforcement, there was something called probable cause. If that exist and the government, school,or employer feels they have the probable cause to believe a person is on drugs, then go ahead a do your test, make your case and prove the target you have selected is guilty.

And for the record, I have had to submit to several random drug test while in law enforcement. I had nothing to hide then, have nothing to hide now. To me its a matter of protecting the few rights we have left in this country.

I don’t think these tests will deter drug use as much as they’ll prompt students to drink instead because they know the alcohol will leave their systems in time to produce “clean” drug tests. Alcohol is also much easier and cheaper to get than illegal drugs: raid mom and dad’s cabinets, have an older sibling or friend purchase, wait outside H-E-B and give a college kid a few bucks to purchase, go to parties at the college apartment complexes, etc. I knew people who did all of those things while I was a student at SMHS, and the majority of them were athletes and/or students in AP classes.

I wonder how effective this truly is at both catching and deterring drug use. Perhaps the low rate of positives previously seen was a result of more kids drinking alcohol than doing meth or PCP.

Plus, throwing in UIL academic should make this unconstitutional. The supreme court opinion upholding random testing of kids relied upon the fact that student athletes showered together to mean they had less of an expectation of privacy. The debate team shouldn’t be showering together, so they should still have an expectation of privacy (and respect).