Persuasive Essay On Drug Testing In Schools

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Pages: 4

Generally speaking, we all know that drug testing is a way for companies to test applications for drug use. This has become a common procedure in some areas of society, professionalism in a wide range of industries. However, how would you feel if school officials are requiring middle school and high school students to take drug tests in order to join sports or any extracurricular activities in public schools? Allowing the strategy of screening in a public high school environment would generate considerable controversy with the students and parents or guardians; it makes sense for professionals to conduct testing, but in a school environment this just doesn’t seem suitable. With this in mind, random drug testing for middle school and high school students should be …show more content…
According to Students for Sensible Drug Policy, “Schools electing to drug test their students are subject to tremendous legal liability (3).” With that said, schools are subject to legal actions that pertain to lawsuits and financial ruin. Having to deal with lawsuits will destroy the schools budget and the cost of the drug test will be worthless. Tom Angell’s research shows that, “Laws vary greatly from state to state, and in the absence of state court decisions upholding drug testing, school districts run the serious risk of financial ruin in the event of a lawsuit, even when successfully defended (3).” So why bother spending the money on lawsuits when money is needed somewhere else within the district? There are other probabilities on how the money can be spent. For instance, Boyd acknowledges, “Rather than waste limited funding on this humiliating and counterproductive policy schools should give students information about the dangers of drug use as well as counseling to those in need (1).” This would eliminate the cost of drug testing programs and any legal matters towards the privacy of the