By Catherine Cuellar
Dallas, TX –
Catherine Cuellar, 90.1 Reporter: Among more than 1800 students at Frisco High School, about a third can be tested for use of alcohol and illegal drugs - including marijuana, amphetamines, cocaine, and opiates. The school's program is mandatory for athletes. Parents must consent to drug testing for their children to participate in extra-curricular activities. Coach David Kuykendall helped develop the policy.
David Kuykendall, Athletic Director, Frisco ISD: Our kids kind of wear it as a badge of honor that they are tested and they are clean, and it hasn't been a deterrent for anybody to come out for the program. And we have a really good group of kids. So we don't have a large number of them, I don't think, that are out there doing the wrong things but those that are thinking about it, we're going to arm 'em with a reason to say no.
Cuellar: The number of positive tests for illegal drug and alcohol use dropped from four students during the 2001-2002 year to two students each last school year and this one. Last Friday John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, came to Frisco and praised their program, urging more schools to do the same.
John P. Walters, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy: It's an important tool that allows us, we believe, to connect our knowledge of addiction and substance abuse as a disease - a disease that starts in adolescence with exposure to dangerous and addictive substances - and the public health tools we have used to stop other childhood-based disease.
Cuellar: Frisco is ahead of the curve. It began testing student athletes for drug and alcohol use five years ago, without state or federal grants. Two years later, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that random drug testing is legal for public school kids in extracurricular activities and private schools' entire student body - as long as results are confidential and consequences are corrective, not punitive.
Over the last month, the drug czar sponsored four regional summits - in Dallas, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and Portland - to make schools aware of federal funds for drug testing, and to help schools craft legal policies. But an extensive study funded in part by the National Institute on Drug Abuse found testing fails to significantly reduce illicit drug use among students. Tom Angell is communications director of the Washington D.C.-based Students for Sensible Drug Policy, which opposes testing.
Tom Angell, Communications Director, Students for Sensible Drug Policy: We're living in a time right now when school districts are struggling just to pay their teachers adequately and keep the lights on. The $25.4 million that President Bush is proposing to fund random student drug testing programs around the country would be much better spent on coming up with more effective drug education to help students understand the dangers of drugs in the first place and make safe and sensible decisions. Also, to open up more extracurricular activities to provide safe learning atmospheres for students to go to in the critical hours between the end of the school day and the time their parents come home from work.
Cuellar: Dallas resident Suzanne Wills agrees, citing opposition to student drug testing by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association, and the National Education Association. As an activist with the Drug Policy Forum of Texas, Wills would prefer all drugs be legal and regulated. She would also like more beneficial public spending.
Suzanne Wills, Drug Policy Forum of Texas: 100% of the students pay for drug testing with larger class sizes, fewer teachers, less equipment, less time in class. They have to take time out to do this program. And students are much better off if they're better educated than if just a few of them feel a little more reluctant to use drugs.
Cuellar: Don Hooton disagrees. He believes emotional side effects caused by anabolic steroid use led his son Taylor, an athlete at Plano West, to commit suicide two years ago. He founded the Taylor Hooton Foundation to educate and raise awareness of steroid use among students, and to back student drug testing.
Don Hooton, President, Taylor Hooton Foundation: It is literally a life and death matter. In our case, had there been a testing program, who knows? Maybe Taylor would've at the very least been deterred from starting steroids in the first place, or even if he'd started maybe there was a chance he would've been caught and we would've at least known what he was doing. We were never given the opportunity to know that.
Cuellar: This fall, Frisco will start screening for anabolic steroid use, increasing drug test costs from $12 to as much as $175 per student. Frisco ISD has applied for a federal grant from the Department of Education to help pay for its program. The Texas legislature is also concerned. Last week, the House passed a bill requiring students to learn about the risks of taking steroids, but it backed off mandatory testing - at least for now. A similar bill is in the Senate. For KERA 90.1, I'm Catherine Cuellar.
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