It is becoming more and more common for different high schools – namely private high schools – to drug test their students as per their admission requirements. Many public schools are now trying to implement a program that requires that students be drug tested, and this is a bill that has been seen on the ballot as far back as 1996, when Congress first considered it. Similarly, many cities and states are considering such bills that would allow for their publically funded high schools to legally test for the presence of illegal drugs in their students. Some schools view it as an effective deterrent for kids who may otherwise use drugs, others use it as screening function to eliminate problem or drug addicted kids from their school system.

In support of these systems of drug testing, those who favor them use the national statistics on drug abuse as the main premise. The numbers – mostly provided by NIDA (National Institute on Drug Abuse) – show alarmingly increasing rates of drug abuse amongst our teens, which demonstrates that kids are using drugs at younger ages than beforehand (most kids try drugs at least once by the age of 12, according to NIDA). The penalty for kids who test positive for drugs is that they could be suspended or expelled from school, their parents would be informed, and they could even get into legal trouble.

While most schools and their officials would applaud such a system being in place at their school, currently the only systems in place require that the parents agree or consent to their child being tested for drugs. This generally takes place if the school has a suspicion that a particular student is using drugs. They then have to contact the parents and get their written consent before they can test the child for drugs. For instance, if a child is acting high in the classroom, a teacher could send them to the nurse’s office under suspicion and the parents could be called to approve of a drug test.

Most school sports programs already have drug testing measures in place, and they have had them in place for decades. This is to ensure that athletes are not using any drugs or performance enhancing supplements. If athletes test positive, under generally random tests that they agreed to by being a part of the team, they are disqualified from the team. Those who don’t support this method of deterring drug usage amongst teens say that it is a violation of their privacy. However, this hasn’t dissuaded most schools from enacting stringent drug testing policies.