Random Drug Tests For High Schoolers
"To the Editor:
Re ''Is This the Answer to Drug Use?'' (March 25):
As a parent of two children who graduated from Delaware Valley Regional High School and an expert in the field of student drug testing, I absolutely support random student drug testing as a deterrent to help solve the problem of teenage drug use. I have been a very active participant at the high school in a variety of capacities, mostly with the school marching band as a chaperone, and can tell you that every school in our state has an issue with student drug use; to deny it is ludicrous and being ignorant to what peer pressure can do to our children.
Like random drug testing in the workplace, random school testing as defined by the courts is a clear deterrent against drug use. Furthermore, random drug testing of student athletes in high school is no different for those same students than if they should later participate in National Collegiate Athletic Association programs.
And what about as they enter the work force? More than 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies perform pre-employment drug testing.
Testing students on a random basis is logical, and it's been upheld by the highest court in the country.
Robert L. Aromando Jr.  Flemington
The writer is managing partner of K Street Associates, a health care consulting firm that works with drug-testing companies.
To the Editor:
I have opposed random drug testing since it began two years ago at Pequannock Township High School. My daughter had to agree to it to join the tennis team. For her it is an unnecessary invasion of privacy. Drug testing undermines the trust between my daughter and me, built at home by example and by my active presence in her life. It is not the school's responsibility to raise our daughter, but to teach her.
More distressing are the parents who sign their children up for ''voluntary'' random testing, when it is not required for extracurricular activities. Do the parents feel this somehow lets them off the hook?
Administrators say the testing helps by ''discouraging drug use among some troubled youngsters.'' But these ''troubled youngsters'' are not usually involved in school activities, and are therefore not tested. This may be why only 1 percent of tests are positive and schools can claim that tests are ''a deterrent.''
Those students with ''non-negative'' tests must have counseling, a treatment plan, and a subsequent negative test, but nothing ''punitive.'' Maybe a little threat of punishment wouldn't hurt here. But why punish everyone?
Priscilla Mainardi  Pompton Plains
To the Editor:
Student drug testing is needed in all the schools in the United States. Our children are dying at an alarming rate in this country. The weapon of mass destruction is right here; it's called addiction. Schools need to step up and starting helping to fight this so-called war rather then hiding it.
My own son was buying his cocaine in a special-ed classroom in a suburb of Southern New Jersey. Maybe had they drug-tested him it wouldn't have gone on as long as it did. It's not that I was in denial; I had no idea what to look for and never thought he would use drugs.
Wake up, America! Start standing up and doing the right thing. Save our children, of all ages -- children are using drugs as early as fifth grade.
Drug testing should be mandatory in all schools.
Kathleen A. Dobbs  National Park
The writer is a co-founder of Parent-to-Parent, an organization that helps parents find drug treatment for their children.
To the Editor:
As a 17-year-old junior at Montville Township High School, I find the idea of random drug testing in schools to be a gross violation of students' civil liberties.
School officials should certainly be able to take action based on students' actual behavior during school hours, but it is not their place to investigate students' irrelevant weekend activities. Furthermore, extracurricular activities are an excellent alternative to drug use, and pushing students away from them (either by making consent forms mandatory in the first place or by punishing drug use) only serves to take that alternative away from at-risk students.
Supporters of the tests say that the consequences of a positive result are not punishments, but how can they be called anything else? They take away privileges because of bad behavior, not to mention stigmatizing students in the school community (it's unrealistic to say that other students wouldn't find out). This is neither a just nor an effective solution to the problem of drug use.
Allegra Stout  Montville
To the Editor:
Random student drug testing works. We had it in my children's high school and it reduced drug use and gave the kids a reason to say no to drugs. This is just common sense.
David G. Evans  Pittstown
To the Editor:
Random drug testing for students is offensive. The ''safety for the children'' argument is just not compelling; it has always been a fundamental truism that the important thing is almost never ''what is done'' but is always ''who gets to decide what is done.'' Whether testing is good or bad is a matter of personal opinion, but the parents should be the ones who decide.
Liberals want to allow my daughter to have abortion on demand without parental approval, and conservatives want to mandate drug testing without parental approval. Yet, if my under-18 child harms another person or destroys property, it is my wife and I who are responsible. Does this make sense?
When even wealthy school districts in wealthy counties struggle to get school budgets passed, and are considering eliminating basic programs and services and are charging extra for bus transportation despite high school taxes, don't these districts have better things to do than to play nanny?
Edward Zohn  Watchung
To the Editor:
Students might feel better about random drug testing, and it would seem fairer, if teachers, administrators and school board members were also randomly tested. After all, we wouldn't want our kids entrusted to anyone under such influences, would we?
Theodore Chase Jr.  Princeton"