NJ School Mandatory Drug Test

http://news.bostonherald.com/national/view.bg?articleid=1802 01

Found this on the MJ morning show website. I for one am against. Thoughts?

I have nothing against them searching you or locker or anything like that, but requiring somebody to take a drug test in a public school is an invasion of privacy. If you want to drink underage on you own time thats your business, not your schools.

If your under the age of 18 you have no rights.

Schools do not need warrants to search a student's locker or bag for illegal or stolen items. All they need is reasonable suspicion.

NJ vs. TLO stated that public schools are representatives of the state, and that searches ARE legal as long as they aren't excessively intrusive.

More to the point of this issue:

"Urine tests of student athletes were upheld in Vernonia School v Acton (515 US 646 [1995]), when the court again used in loco parentis, a lowered expectation of privacy for athletes, and the need for deterrence of drug use, particularly among athletes, as justifications for forced testing. Said the Court: "Fourth Amendment rights, no less than First and Fourteenth Amendment rights, are different in public schools than elsewhere; the "reasonableness" inquiry cannot disregard the schools' custodial and tutelary responsibility for children."

If they can drug test athletes, why not the rest of them?

http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_stud.html

But the question to be asked is:

If noone else of doing something about excessive underage drinking, why then can't the state?

It would have to have been a serious problem for this state to want to require it. If its a problem, it needs to be stopped.

The parents and local police forces aren't doing anything about it, why can't the state through the medium of the schools?

Essentially, voting against something along these lines would be paramount to either ignoring the existing problem, or condoning the deviant behavior of underaged drinking.

I still fail to see a problem with it. I would have contested it when I was in high school, but thats because i wasn't able to make mature, rational decisions back then, which is the entire point of this case.

Look, several times in the last few years, students have been in deep trouble for drinking alcohol within the walls of the school I work at itself.

Where does this behavior start? On the weekends when theres a lack of supervision over irresponsible, reckless adolescents who, despite their own beliefs are NOT capable of making decisions themselves.

At 15-18, you're going through a serious volatile time in your life. Having alcohol added to it, coupled with the apparent indifference of your authoritative figures only makes things worse.

If its a problem, it should be stopped. If they're underage and in violation of the law, they should be in trouble for it.

If your argument is "but they're not doing it at SCHOOL, how come they get in trouble?" How come its okay for bus drivers, state employees and other workers dependant on the standings of their employers to be ejected from employment for failing a drug test, should they have smoked weed on friday night after work? If thats all legal, then so should be the testing of students in a state facilitated school, regardless of wether or not their hazardous activities are taking place on or off school grounds. ESPECIALLY if they're underaged.

Da Hui wrote: Reb Cpl's Link wrote: A tactic undertaken by more and more schools of late is that of searching of student lockers, bags, and of their persons. I dont see anywhere in that where it states the drug/alcohol tests are legal.

That was just to indicate the types of authority that the schools have granted to them as a state representative. Sorry for not clarifying.