random drug testing of student athletes is an unfair practice because you are invading someones privacy for no reason at all.l in the cases where there is strong sucpision of drug use then yes go ahead and test as for those who are so clearly good kids why cause them the trouble just so your school looks like its trying to help cure the drug problem? in a world where you have so few chances, schools should stop wasting their time on a case with an obvious out come. catch those douing the drugs then your efforts wont look so pointless and dumb.

whats wrong with marijuana anyways?

Drug testing should be done for cause only.

Liberty and justice for all.

My home

And that is what drug testing in schools is. Simple.

...so many "no" votes. These people get it.
The "yes" votes? These people need counseling as they clearly don't understand the concept or importance of personal privacy.

Not only is drug testing so full of false positives that it's only 40% reliable on the average, but it is also an unacceptable violation of personal privacy. In cases where the test is not consented to, it comes close to rape.
A non-consensual intrusion into the body of another is rape. When done to a child, damn near pedo.

And a big, hardy NO to "sports only" testing. Because for one, steroids don't have the impact on performance most people have been led to believe.
Secondly, they won't stop there. If a person tests negative for steroids, but positive for Marijuana they smoked two weeks ago, they will still be subjected to unreasonable sanctions.

What drugs people do in the privacy of their own home is nobody's fucking business but their own.

Drug testing is performed for basically two reasons: Insurance Company pressure, and the desire to invade the privacy of another. Both reasons born of uneducated, reactionary people who are overcome with paranoia.

Drug Testing is unAmerican. It's as simple as that.

Kids on steroids willing to risk it all for success

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I think you go beyond sports. A culture of you take a pharmaceutical in order to perform develops a crutch you want to avoid.

As the Dad of two athletes who were constantly having to pee in a jar, I have to say that testing in schools is a joke. My sons were randomly tested over and over while other kids never got tested.

The kids claimed it was an open secret that they didn't test the druggies...only the clean kids who would pass the tests and show that drugs weren't a problem.

I'm a vote for no testing without evidence of a problem.

But I'd have preferred a Sports Only - Performance Enhancing Drugs Only qualifier. The problem of performance enhancing drugs is that by chemically enhancing your performance, you're applying pressure on the other competitors to do the same thing. Athletes are competing against one another for a common goal. In competition, one is always under pressure to find an edge. For the same reason we have regulations in place to keep companies from taking undesired shortcuts to find an edge, for the same reason we have regulations in place limiting how long a coach can practice his players or when practices can begin, and for the same reason we have regulations in place controlling the equipment that can be used on the playing field, performance enhancing drugs are fair game to be regulated and tested for.

Your right to risk your own health and financial security ought to be unabridged providing you're not hurting anyone else in the process of said self-destruction.

Or music students abusing inhalers?

That's a new one on me.

(Us trumpet players abused campho-phenique to dull the pain of our bleeding lips, but never heard of that.)

Or music students abusing inhalers? There are signs of steroid abuse. That is a reason to test.

I think testing without cause is akin to guilty until proven innocent.

As for performance enhancers, there are questions about where to draw lines there too? If that chess player takes Omega-3 fatty acids with breakfast each morning, is that too much performance enhancing? What of lasik or filtered contacts?

Doug McCaughan
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I did too, skb, so that's two of those three votes. Didn't give a lot of thought to it, but I think you said it best. I'm not crazy about any drug testing, but I'm not crazy about sports and the pressure around it either.

Many athletes get obsessed about doing anything to help their performance, and there's also the "leisure activities" that too many think they are entitled to because they're "stars." Granted non-athletes would then be getting a free pass, but neither do they have reason to feel the same entitlement.

But if it's not a problem, I could back down.

I admit to being one of the votes for "sports only" (and being the one suggesting it be included).

The problem of performance enhancing drugs in sports is, in my view, a special case. And maybe drugs in general, as indicated by of all the stuff we keep hearing about UT football players. Maybe the top athletes get too many passes on too many things, making them believe they are above it all and immune to consequences.

It doesn't seem to be much of a problem with the Chess Clubs and Astronomy Clubs. Band maybe...

Anyway, I could be talked out of the "sports only" into "just say no to random drug testing" if I could be convinced it's not a problem among high school athletes, who are the trend setters and role models other students are encouraged to adulate and look up to.

So, Cathy, what I hear you saying is you don't want Tommy to get in trouble for what the drugs Doug takes to stay awake all night?

Drug testing should only occur when someone is behaving erratically. The motivation behind this legislation is tainted. A Scott County school administrator once bragged that he was going to require all students involved in extra curricular activities take drug tests. I asked why. He looked at me bug eyed for a minute and then he said "we don't want druggies in our schools." I pushed harder and asked what would happen to students who failed their screen. Clearly angry, he growled that they couldn't come to school without clean tests. At this point I knew I had gone too far to salvage anything and sadistically asked how being kicked out of school would help children. I asked if it was possible for the parents' drug activity to cause false positives. He mumbled something along the line of good riddance to bad rubbish and stomped away to see about having me removed from the premises.

This has been proposed by TN Repub. Sen. Jim Tracy, Shelbyville, and has advanced through the Senate Education committee.