Each time the Drug Czar hosts a summit to promote random student drug testing, DPA supporters attend to ensure that educators and media hear not just the government's propaganda, but the full story about these ineffective and harmful surveillance programs.
 
Over the last two months, individuals opposed to random student drug testing distributed literature at six summits across the country, voicing concerns that these programs deter students from joining extracurricular activities and erode relationships of trust at school.
 
Following the final summit in the Drug Czar's announced tour, The Indianapolis Star published a scathing op-ed against random student drug testing. Opinion columnist Dan Carpenter criticized the lesson testing sends to our youth, commenting, "This generation is growing up in a surveillance state, and school serves to prepare them for the workplace drug testing, official IDs, ubiquitous bar codes and warrantless wiretapping that will define their adult lives."
 
Attendees have heard numerous alarming comments at the summits--at one summit this year, a high school principal from New Jersey told educators, "Fear in the mind of teenagers is a beautiful thing!"  
 
Jennifer Kern, coordinator of DPA's Drug Testing Fails Our Youth program, said, "The rhetoric just keeps getting more outlandish. But no matter how many summits the Office of National Drug Control Policy holds, and no matter how many times the presenters speak their disingenuous lines, they will never be right."

The ONDCP just announced yet another student drug testing summit in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, on April 24.  Check out our online toolkit and keep an eye on your inbox for more information on how to get involved.