People (yes you Dan) may finally be coming around tomy initial take, that the Governor did the right thing in vetoing the ethics legislation unanimously passed by the legislature, based on newspaper editorials over the last couple of days. Bravo!
This quote concerns me:
[Gulf Shores High Principal Eddie] Tyler said that the testing sends a clear message to students: Do drugs and you will get caught.
“We may have some students who think, ‘Well, I’m never going to get caught. I’m an occasional user, and this really doesn’t work,’” Tyler said. “I think our student population can see that’s not true. As more and more students make that mistake and that mistake is uncovered … hopefully, more and more will say, ‘I can’t do drugs. I can’t afford this.’”
“Getting caught” is not what student drug testing programs are supposed to be about. The quickest way to get such a program sued is to make it about punishing students who get caught, that isn’t the purpose. These programs are supposed to be about getting treatment for people who need it and intervening with kids who are experimenting before they get addicted. It is not supposed to be punitive and as soon as you turn it into that, you are violating the law. If it’s not about helping students, then it quickly crosses the line into “search with no suspicion legal territory”.
© 2007 The World Around You
