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Drug Czar Coming to a Town Near You: Pee For the Feds

From Students for a Sensible Drug Policy:

The Drug Czar is going on the road to convince schools to take advantage of millions of dollars in federal grant money made available for the express purpose of testing teens' urine. Parents everywhere should be "pissed off" that their hard-earned tax dollars are being flushed down the toilet - literally - on programs that usurp family decision making and do nothing to stop young people from using drugs.

The cities are Orlando, San Diego, Falls Church, VA and Milwaukee, WI.

If you live in or around any of these cities, please get in touch with SSDP as soon as possible to find out how you can counteract the Drug Czar's propaganda machine when it comes to town. Students, parents, and activists had a great time raining on the Drug Czar's parade last year. Let's make sure he and his cronies know that we'll continue to be there providing the truth wherever and whenever they proliferate lies.

Here's their full webpage on student drug testing. Here's a small portion:

Currently less than 5% of high schools in the U.S. perform random drug tests on their students. However, the federal government has recently ramped up its campaign to encourage schools to implement drug testing regimes and even offers grants to fund them. Meanwhile, representatives from drug testing companies are increasingly arranging presentations in front of local school boards to promote their products. As a result, some schools require students to submit to drug testing if they want to participate in any extra-curricular activity.

Unfortunately, student drug testing is ineffective, counterproductive, expensive, and invasive. Though intended to reduce student drug use, the science tells us that drug testing simply does not work. Many have raised concerns that such programs could even aggravate an existing drug problem by pushing students away from the same extracurricular activities that are proven to reduce drug use. Perhaps even worse, some students may substitute “harder” drugs for the much more detectible marijuana in an effort to avoid a positive test result.

The concerns about invasiveness and rights violations are self-evident. Forcing a student to urinate into a cup while a school official listens outside the stall undermines civics lessons on the Fourth Amendment. Moreover, schools should not be in the business of subjecting already body-conscious adolescents to this kind of humiliating experience.

Just as alarming as the government’s promotion of student drug testing is the emerging trend it has fueled regarding the erosion of students’ rights and privacy in other areas. At many schools, students can expect unannounced searches of their persons, bookbags, and lockers – with or without cause.

I would never have allowed my teen to be drug-tested. All students should object to this policy. It's a slippery slope. First come the drug tests, and then, as SSDP says:

At many schools, students can expect unannounced searches of their persons, bookbags, and lockers – with or without cause.

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  • Display: Sort:
    Re: Drug Czar Coming to a Town Near You: Pee For t (none / 0) (#1)
    by aw on Wed Jan 11, 2006 at 08:40:04 PM EST
    I have this vision of reaching over the stall door and dumping pee on the school official's head. Here's your drug test. I hope more parents will take a stand for their kids dignity and bodily integrity instead of willingly conditioning them to submit to whatever the authorities want. Who stands to benefit from this anyway? Somebody is making a fortune on this, I assume.

    Re: Drug Czar Coming to a Town Near You: Pee For t (none / 0) (#2)
    by Dadler on Wed Jan 11, 2006 at 09:00:15 PM EST
    I'd bring in a little apple juice to put in the pee cup, then, just as I was about to hand it in, I'd hold it up to the light, swirl it around like a glass of fine wine, then gulp it down and say "I shoulda smoked more pot, it tastes a little thin."

    Re: Drug Czar Coming to a Town Near You: Pee For t (none / 0) (#3)
    by scarshapedstar on Wed Jan 11, 2006 at 09:56:03 PM EST
    I think it's about time our schools made like a Cheney and "had other priorities".

    Re: Drug Czar Coming to a Town Near You: Pee For t (none / 0) (#4)
    by kdog on Thu Jan 12, 2006 at 06:07:43 AM EST
    Somebody is making a fortune on this, I assume.
    You'd assume correct aw. The invasion-of-privacy business is huge. I also see it as conditioning...get 'em while they are young and they will pee in your cup for life. Prepare them for the workforce, where it seems many employers care more for the contents of your urine as opposed to the contents of your mind.

    Re: Drug Czar Coming to a Town Near You: Pee For t (none / 0) (#5)
    by SeeEmDee on Thu Jan 12, 2006 at 07:51:37 AM EST
    AW's question is more important tahn you might think. Because the answer gives a perfect illustration of the kind of 'culture of corruption' that's endemic in Washington DC nowadays. The first preson to cash in on the urine testing craze was former DrugCzar Robert DuPont...who was the earliest official proponent of wide-ranging random testing outside the military. He started the fad. After leaving government service, he became very wealthy lobbying for and then forming a company to do - what else? - urine testing. Then came Carlton Turner, who also advocated drug testing while in office...and took the same path as his predecessors into private industry, selling piss-testing kits. Then came Barry McCaffery, who also advocated testing while in office...and sought to cash in on the 'treatment' fad for marijuana 'addicts' when he left office, which, needless to say, requires urine testing. Then we had Andrea Barthwell, Johnny "Pee" Walter's Number Two, who was a great fan of testing kids...and of course decided to enter both the testing industry and is now a mouthpiece for GW Pharmaceuticals, the developer of the marijuana-based medicine Sativex. (While she was in office, she railed against all cannabis as being 'dangerous'; now that she fronts for a company that makes a cannabis extract for medicinal use, her tune has changed to 'crude drug' (natural) cannabis as being 'dangerous'. The hypocrisy of this is so stunning there are no words to encompass.) I fully expect that ol' Johnny Pee will 'go with the (golden) flow' and follow his predecessors footsteps by continuing the time honored tradition of making a featherbed for himself by championing piss-testing while in office and then find work with his test industry buddies when he hangs up his gub'mint hat. Children, can you say 'corruption'? Suuuure you can!

    Re: Drug Czar Coming to a Town Near You: Pee For t (none / 0) (#6)
    by kdog on Thu Jan 12, 2006 at 08:02:34 AM EST
    Very informative See. A multi-million dollar cash cow sucking on the govt's teet.

    Re: Drug Czar Coming to a Town Near You: Pee For t (none / 0) (#7)
    by kdog on Thu Jan 12, 2006 at 08:03:35 AM EST
    Person A: So what do you do for a living? Piss-test executive: I'm in the tyranny business baby!

    Re: Drug Czar Coming to a Town Near You: Pee For t (none / 0) (#8)
    by Che's Lounge on Thu Jan 12, 2006 at 05:58:40 PM EST
    Urine testing is another technological form of surveillance that monitors what you do in your own personal life. Abbie Hoffman documented the start of the urine testing craze in his book "Steal this Urine Test" 20 years ago. RIP Abbie.

    Re: Drug Czar Coming to a Town Near You: Pee For t (none / 0) (#9)
    by aw on Thu Jan 12, 2006 at 09:20:58 PM EST
    I got a new job today. And they haven't asked for pee. I was prepared with a speech for why I wouldn't pee for them and they didn't ask! (At my last job they did--and I did. Never again.)

    Re: Drug Czar Coming to a Town Near You: Pee For t (none / 0) (#10)
    by kdog on Fri Jan 13, 2006 at 08:10:04 AM EST
    I hear that aw...never again for me either. I've had it with the teas, the pills, the shampoos, etc. That stuff is pricey! Next time, I tell 'em flat out "my urine is my business, not yours." Did Abbie really write such a book Che? I read "Steal This Book" and loved it, did he do a whole series or something? Abbie's pointers on defending yourself against police aggression came in very handy for me when I got mauled by a bouncer one time, specifically the "stomp down on the shins" manuever when grabbed from behind. A real American hero he was.

    Re: Drug Czar Coming to a Town Near You: Pee For t (none / 0) (#11)
    by swingvote on Fri Jan 13, 2006 at 08:16:53 AM EST
    Absolute and utter madness. Just one more reason to pull your kids out of the public schools if you can. And yes, Kdog, Abbie did write such a book. I saw him do a lecture just before he died and he was pretty worked up about this stuff.

    Re: Drug Czar Coming to a Town Near You: Pee For t (none / 0) (#12)
    by kdog on Fri Jan 13, 2006 at 08:29:21 AM EST
    Thanks jpaul. I wish more people got worked up about it. FYI, Private schools piss-test too, at least my old Catholic HS did. Only for athletes though.

    Re: Drug Czar Coming to a Town Near You: Pee For t (none / 0) (#13)
    by swingvote on Fri Jan 13, 2006 at 08:31:42 AM EST
    kdog, Yes, but you accept such things as part of the deal you make with the school. Nobody gave that power to the NEA.

    I don't know what the big deal is; We've always had drug testing in Rock & Roll ... of course it was multiple choice;-)