Educators in Charleston, South Carolina, got an extensive propaganda pitch yesterday at the Office of National Drug Control Policy's (ONDCP) summit to promote random, suspicionless student drug testing. Thanks to DPA and local drug policy reformers, educators also heard about student drug testing's many flaws.
 
Jennifer Kern, coordinator of DPA's Drug Testing Fails Our Youth campaign, was at the summit along with representatives of South Carolinians for Drug Law Reform (SCDLR). They distributed materials and raised key questions challenging the ONDCP's position. Skip Johnson of SCDLR said, "It was important that we were at the summit. Most people are willing to pick up materials and seemed open-minded. They were there for information."
 
The message of opposition also came out in the local media, with Kern doing two television interviews for local news stations and an interview with the Charleston Post & Courier. She explained that random student drug testing programs can backfire by detering young people from participating in the very extracurricular activities that keep students supervised and connected during the peak drug taking hours between 3 and 6 pm.
 
Wednesday's summit, the first of 2007, featured the types of outlandish assertions that have been a hallmark of past summits. Bill Judge, an attorney presenting on the legal issues of student drug testing, told the crowd he has never been in a community where there was less than 90% support for student drug testing, or seen a community spend more than $2,000 on a program. This is a shocking claim given the extremely controversial nature of the policy, and given that schools spend on average $42 per drug test--which would make for a total of $21,000 for a high school testing 500 students.
 
Chris Steffner, a high school principal from New Jersey and presenter at the summit, had a ready answer to address why so many professional and public health organizations oppose random student drug testing. She said that the American Academy of Pediatrics opposes the policy because it stands to gain financially if parents send their children to pediatricians to be tested, and she asserted that the National Education Association opposes student drug testing because its members would not want to be tested themselves.
 
As summit presenters tried to downplay opposition with absurd claims, they worked to make random student drug testing sound like a popular, positive choice for school districts. Sharon Foatepietoo of SCDLR noted, "I am amazed at how they sugar coat a program that treats young people as if they are guilty until they prove their innocence."
 
There are three summits left in 2007, with the next one taking place in February in Newark, New Jersey. New Jersey residents: Watch your inboxes for more information so that reformers can continue to meet the ONDCP with formidable opposition every step of the way. Those who cannot attend the summit will still be able to participate by contacting their members of Congress to express their opposition to random student drug testing.

It's not too late to contribute to the Drug Testing Fails campaign, to help us continue to raise opposition at the remaining three summits. Thank you!