Drugs testing in schools

[Allen]

BTW mate, you're here arguing against drug use and in favour of prohibition, and yet your custom user text is the name of a movie drug dealer. Consistent moral standpoint there.

Perhaps he can tell the difference between real life and movies. I love films about crime, very interesting to watch, yet I'm against crime. Is that not a possible mixture? Coz I hate drugs, does that mean I hate Goodfellas for instance? No way, it's probably the best film I own. Trainspotting, Human Traffic... I love them too.

Hate drugs though.

[Zak33]

Whether you agree or disagree with drug use, be it legitimate use of heavily addictive sedatives (which kids DO get prescribed sadly ) or weed, the thing is WHY SHOULDN'T A CHILD be searched for them?

If my kid was on uppers, I'd ave to tell the school....they need toknow that kinda thing. So if he/she got stopped and an anti depressant was found on them I'd WANNA KNOW and WANT IT FOUND. If its legit, the school will know about it. If not then THEY NEED FINDING. And we are talking here about PRESCRIPTION DRUGS...so when it comes to illegal substances, that the minor in question isn't old enough to decide about yet, then it needs finding. Whether you like it or not, as you get older, you realise the things you used to say/stand up for, as a kid, weren't all correct, even though at thetime they FELT right.

Drug use is one of those things. You need to be older than a school kid to understand the importance of the subject....good or bad.

If I discovered a child with a 4 pack of beer in his/her sports bag I'd be MORE WORRIED than if they had a half smoked joint...so Iknow what the arguements are..but I'd want EITHER FOUND>..and taken away....cos its not right for schools to have such things on site.

[Rave]

Zak, they're not talking about bag searches (which on the whole I would support, and which I think schools have the right to do anyway); they're talking about drug testing I.E. blood/urine/hair tests (it hasn't been made clear which).

I won't get involved in any mroe arguing while I'm at work or I might get told off, but the BBC have posted a follow up article which points out the myriad legal problems with implementing the proposal.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/3513089.stm

Rich :¬)

[Allen]

What's the difference between finding the drugs on them and finding they have used the drugs? Parents and teachers should be made aware either way.

[Zak33]

Blood tests...fine

Hair tests...fine.

As we said...you shouldn't have the substance in your body. Not at school. I mean, lets not be too intesne here, but picture this...

Top Sporto Student......good at all sports, in all the teams....fails drug test a week after winning the County Sports Shield for whatever he/she's good at.

Bloody nightmare......

[kushtibari]

The use of drugs is an emotive issue and one in which most people will have a firm opinion about. I'm not pro drugs but the govt seems to have fuddled the whole issue. Any law that results in police dealing with you differently for the same offence (cannabis possession) just because of where you live has got to be wrong. Should schools start testing for drugs, the informed guess would be that the majority of positive tests would be for cannabis. Who's going to administer the tests, how do you get picked, what happens if it's positive, do the police get called and does your house get searched?, social services conferences on your family?

Police times better spent looking at people dealing ANY kind of drugs to kids and those idiots that break into our homes, cars and mug folk and commit a huge percentage of our crime to pay for other, harder drugs

[Punky]

cheers for calling me a druggy. i was suggesting you actually did something positive with the kids you are moaning about. and just because your mate messed up on drugs doesn't mean everyone who smokes cannabis does. i've smoked it for about 3 yrs now, and the only other drug i've taken is magic mushrooms. i've been offered pills, coke, speed, acid etc... many times, but i don't see the point.
i don't deny there are negative aspects of cannabis, but there are also good ones. it just depends which side of the argument you like to see.

when i have kids, i'd be a hell of a lot happier with them smoking cannabis than going out and getting paraletic on the park with alcopops most nights(been there, done that, it aint great). i wouldn't be happy with them smoking it before they were 15, but i recon as long as i'm open with them and give them the full story, not the 1-sided bullrubbishrubbishrubbishrubbish kids are fed at school nowadays, they will be ok with it. its moderation and self-discipline. i would not, however, be happy with my kids being searched at school. its the parents job to sort issues like that out, not the schools.
peace.

[megah0]

but do you think the majority of parents actually know what little tommy gets up to at school?

my guess is that a large proportion of them have very little idea.

[floppybootstomp]

Just by way of interest, Cannabis can stay in your body up to a week. Student has a toke on Saturday, tested positive for drugs at School following Wednesday. Next step Social Services splitting the family?

[DeludedGuy]

Right, so the fact that it doesn't make any difference to your mother means that everyone else is talking BS does it? Right, well by that logic, I've never got violent when stoned, so that means that everyone who says that stoners can get violent is talking BS too. Glad we got that settled.

BTW mate, you're here arguing against drug use and in favour of prohibition, and yet your custom user text is the name of a movie drug dealer. Consistent moral standpoint there.

Rich :¬)

First of all, if you actually bothered to read my earlier posts you would know that I already said that the effects of cannabis vary depending on the person.

Some of you are going off the topic here, we are talking about drug testing in schools, not fictional characters in movies. And BTW, the film Scarface is not just about drugs, it’s about life.

Back to the topic, I don’t believe its right that anyone under 16 should be taking drugs. I don’t believe they are wise enough to be making decisions that could ultimately cost them their lives. Its not just cannabis kids are taking nowadays and if any of you are parents, I’m 100% positive you wouldn’t want your children doing heroin.

And for those who say the police should be targeting the drug dealers instead of the kids, maybe you don’t realise it, but a lot of 15-16 year olds are dealing drugs, and they sell drugs in school, I know this because my old secondary school had 2 drug dealers.

[Slick]

I'm all for it, not to punish the kids, but as a deterant. The age kids take drugs is getting younger and younger and this will put people off from first trying them. When I started the upper school no one did it in my year, if I look now at that year, half of them do. Weather responsible adults take drugs or not is another matter but I think everyone will agree that a 10 year old doing it should be stopped.

[Slick]

If kids are going to take drugs they are going to take drugs. They simply wont take them to school. Pushing the problem under the carpet and out of public view is not a solution.

A drug test will test positive wherever you take the drugs, you don't have to have drugs on you or be high at the time to fail a drugs test.

[petrefax]

its not an unreasonable guess to say that if this is introduced, kids who do use drugs will start bunking off more so as to minimise their chances of getting caught & then what'll you have?? uneducated stoners wandering the streets AAAAAHHHHH!!! lock up your elderly

[DaBeeeenster]

FFS, ok HERE. It's not improving HERE!

I wasn't talking about the whole bloody country, I was talking about the area surrounding me (Ashford, Staines, Feltham, Egham, Kingston, Heathrow), the areas where my families live (Bedford, Hull, Devon, East Sussex) and the areas where my friends live (Uxbridge, Weybridge, areas listed above)! In nearly ALL those areas youth crime is on the increase so don't give me that government BS!

Are you done trying to prove me wrong now? I have provided substantial proof that in the majority of places I know it's on the increase and others probably will to. So I generalised, so what? We all do it!

You have NOT "provided substantial proof" in the slightest. HOW DO YOU KNOW it is on the increase? Did you live there 30 years ago? 40 years ago? 100 years ago?

[Rave]

First of all, if you actually bothered to read my earlier posts you would know that I already said that the effects of cannabis vary depending on the person.

Yeah, I know you said that, so why are you accusing Knox of BSing when he says cigs calm him down? They may not have made any difference to your mother, but he says that smoking calms him down, and so do I. Different effect on different people. I'm not sure whether it was the chemicals in fags that calmed me or just the pleasure of smoking them, but the fact is smoking a fag made me calmer. I gave up a month ago and the only time I get cravings is when I'm stressed (and when I'm in the pub).

Anyway, that's off topic, so I will get back on topic with an example from my own life. I occasionally had a toke or two at parties from when I was 15/16. I didn't puff regularly, but I probably ended up going to school with some canabis remnants in my bloodstream a few times. Had I been randomly tested at those times, I would have been in trouble, but I wasn't a drug user, and I did reasonably well in school (3 A*s, 4 As at GCSE, 2 As and a C at A-Level). What good would being caught have done me?

A friend of mine, OTOH, smoked a couple of times a week from the age of about 13 (and to be fair drank more than me too). He probably had cannabis in his system more often than not. He carried on for most of his school career, and got 10 As at GCSE and, like me, 2 As and a C at A-Level. How would being caught have helped him?

I know that drugs do screw up some children's school careers, but any half decent teacher (and the vast majority of them are better than half-decent now) can spot a pattern of underachievement, and changes in a pupil's behaviour that might be caused by drugs. If you're going to introduce drug testing, random testing is not the way. A carefully regulated system of targeted testing, run with no other aim in mind than to help kids stay in school and succeed, with no threat of recriminations, might be worth thinking about.

You might be interested to hear what happened after my friend and I left school. I continued to smoke irregularly, but about a year ago I decided that the intense paranoia it gave me wasn't worth it, although I'd had some eye opening experiences.

My friend OTOH now won't touch the stuff because after he got kicked out of uni (for largely unrelated reasons), he did end up wasting a few months of his life doing nothing but bumming around smoking. Testing him in school still wouldn't have helped though.

Blood tests...fine

Are they **** mate. I'm actually less scared of needles than anyone I know, but you're still not going to stick one in me (or my kids, should I have any) without a good reason....and random testing is not a good reason, I'm afraid.

Rich :¬)

[Allen]

You have NOT "provided substantial proof" in the slightest. HOW DO YOU KNOW it is on the increase? Did you live there 30 years ago? 40 years ago? 100 years ago?

Again, why are you trying to prove me wrong. You are not adding to this discussion at all. I've lived in this area long enough to know what it was like 10-20 years ago, that's enough for me.