What do you think of school drug testing?

[DukeOfKings]

This is just a question regarding the morality of school drug tests. I assume it's okay to talk about this because Blue light only prohibits asking advice on drug testing and not drug testing discussion in general, correct me if this is inappropriate. I was reading up on the legality of school drug testing and I still can't wrap my head around why schools can randomly test athletes. Drug tests considered searches and the 4th amendment protects us from searches without reasonable suspicion such as by public entities like public schools. Random testing of athletes is in no way reasonable suspicion as it is by definition random. So we should be protected from searches like these. We are not however and I don't understand how a judge could justify a random test as containing reasonable suspicion, or perhaps they just don't give a shit about it. (I was not tested by my school for drugs, I am merely discussing the theoretical legality of it).

EDIT:I know athletics are a privilege and that is sometimes used for justification but it doesn't change the fact that a government entity is conducting a search without reasonable suspicion.

 

[Burnt Offerings]

Just another way that institutions attempt to control and dominate the lives of individuals from the cradle to the grave.

I don't really get the "rights"/"privileges" dichotomy, personally. The bottom line IMO is that the state and institutions can do basically whatever the hell they want to, and no one is going to change it because people (in the USA, anyway) are too gutless to actually act in accordance with their instincts and resist. In order to resist a policy effectively you need to organize with other people and most Americans would rather just stand in line quietly with a plastic cup filled with their own piss.

Political [or individual] rights do not exist because they have been legally set down on a piece of paper, but only when they have become the ingrown habit of a people, and when any attempt to impair them will be meet with the violent resistance of the populace... One compels respect from others when he knows how to defend his dignity as a human being... The people owe all the political rights and privileges which we enjoy today, in greater or lesser measure, not to the good will of their governments, but to their own strength.

In our time, the symbol of state intrusion into the private life is the mandatory urine test.

 

[DukeOfKings]

That's an interesting point of view, I really like the quote by Rudolf Rocker too. I think another part of the problem is not that people don't have guts but also the mentality that "well if I didn't do drugs I shouldn't have a problem with taking a drug test". People think this is okay because they think anyone who doesn't do drugs should have nothing to hide and in their mind this justifies allowing the government to force people to piss in a cup for them. People are too lazy to say enough because it only takes a fw minutes and afterwards they can go on their way. They don't care if their constitutional rights are being infringed upon.

 

[Felonious Monk]

It's fucking stupid.

We should all be like the kid from Dazed and Confused, crumple it up and throw it back at Coach. Tell him, "Maybe I'll play ball in the fall, but I'm not gonna sign your stupid paper."

 

[Pibolar]

ALL "mandatory" drug testing is an invasion of privacy.

 

[Fug]

Complete invasion of personal freedom to do whatever you want with your body.

School? Fuck off. Job? I can see where that might be more necessary at times.

 

[DukeOfKings]

It's fucking stupid.

We should all be like the kid from Dazed and Confused, crumple it up and throw it back at Coach. Tell him, "Maybe I'll play ball in the fall, but I'm not gonna sign your stupid paper."

I've never seen that one but it sounds pretty good so I'll check it out.

I just find it fucked up that in our public schools we are being forced to hand them a cup of our piss so that they can run tests on us. School should remain separate from peoples private lives. They have no business snooping into what substances we use outside of school and controlling our private lives with threats of suspensions.