E-llusion
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One could argue that some jobs — painting, writing, being a rock star — are better performed under the influence. But other jobs should clearly be given only to the perpetually sober: We don't want our railroad operators or nuclear-plant employees to be smoking up on the job. So it seems appropriate that U.S. employees in those high-risk positions are routinely subjected to random drug testing.
But what about people who work in less perilous, if equally unpredictable, environments — say, with children in public schools? Should teachers be randomly drug tested too? Yes, says Linda Lingle, the Republican governor of Hawaii, where the teacher's union agreed in 2007 to negotiate the terms of a new drug-testing program in exchange for higher wages. Now, some Hawaii teachers are resisting. (So far, no drug tests have been administered.) The contentious issue of teacher testing has also become the subject of recent court cases in North Carolina and West Virginia, where educators argue that the cost and time taken by random tests would be better applied in the classroom.
But one important question hasn't been addressed so far in the legal proceedings: Does random drug testing actually reduce drug use?
Probably not. No studies I found have looked at the specific issue of whether random drug tests affect substance use among teachers. But several studies have examined the impact of random testing in another school population — students. In the most comprehensive study on the subject to date, a 2003 University of Michigan study involving 894 middle and high schools found that random student drug testing tends to reduce marijuana use slightly (by about 5%) but actually increase the use of other drugs (by about 3%). The authors theorize that drug-using kids may think that prescription and other drugs are harder to detect by urinalysis, so they switch from pot to something else. (This assumption is usually incorrect — most drug tests capture everything from heroin to Valium — although certain lesser-used drugs like the anesthetic ketamine aren't detected by the usual tests.)
Even after the University of Michigan authors controlled for socioeconomic differences among students and schools, they found no statistically meaningful difference in drug-use rates among students who attended schools that randomly drug tested and those who didn't. In short, kids weren't deterred from using drugs even when they knew they might be surprised one day with an order to pee in a cup.
Still, the behavior of high-school kids doesn't neatly correspond to that of their teachers — they may well change their behavior in response to random tests. Which leads to a more fundamental question: If we are serious about drug enforcement, why not require every American to be tested randomly, or at least every American who comes into contact with children?
One answer is cost. In the West Virginia drug-testing case, which is currently working its way through the federal court system, Judge Joseph Goodwin of the U.S. District Court noted that it costs about $44 a pop to do urine tests, which would cost the West Virginia school district in question about $37,000 a year. (Here's a PDF of Goodwin's preliminary injunction against drug testing.) That same $37,000 could easily pay for a full-time teacher, meaning that drug testing would have to be sufficiently valuable to displace an entire teaching position.
But the evidence suggests that drug use among teachers is not exactly a pressing problem. In 2007, the Department of Health and Human Services published a major study showing that people who work in education rank 18th out of 19 listed professions in the use of illicit drugs. (Those who work in food service, arts, retail and "information" services — like, um, journalists — were among the major offenders.) Only 4% of educators reported use of illegal drugs in the previous month, compared to 14% of construction workers, who work in a much more dangerous environment. The 4% figure for teachers is still too many, but it doesn't indicate an epidemic of intoxicated teachers that would justify a huge expenditure to curb.
What no one argues against — even attorney Michael Simpson of the National Education Association — is that teachers who are behaving erratically should be tested when their bosses suspect drug use. "If an administrator has a reason to believe a person is under the influence, the school should have the right to test," says Simpson. "But our members feel it's demeaning and unprofessional to make a teacher without suspicion go into a bathroom."
The matter won't be resolved without further studies on whether random drug testing actually reduces drug use, and we may get them under an administration less ideologically opposed to drug reform than President Bush's. But the data so far suggest that random drug testing is a costly, ineffective solution to a non-problem.
-------------------------------------
Thursday, Feb. 05, 2009, Time Magazine
Should School Districts Drug-Test Teachers?
By John Cloud
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1876840,00.html
But what about people who work in less perilous, if equally unpredictable, environments — say, with children in public schools? Should teachers be randomly drug tested too? Yes, says Linda Lingle, the Republican governor of Hawaii, where the teacher's union agreed in 2007 to negotiate the terms of a new drug-testing program in exchange for higher wages. Now, some Hawaii teachers are resisting. (So far, no drug tests have been administered.) The contentious issue of teacher testing has also become the subject of recent court cases in North Carolina and West Virginia, where educators argue that the cost and time taken by random tests would be better applied in the classroom.
But one important question hasn't been addressed so far in the legal proceedings: Does random drug testing actually reduce drug use?
Probably not. No studies I found have looked at the specific issue of whether random drug tests affect substance use among teachers. But several studies have examined the impact of random testing in another school population — students. In the most comprehensive study on the subject to date, a 2003 University of Michigan study involving 894 middle and high schools found that random student drug testing tends to reduce marijuana use slightly (by about 5%) but actually increase the use of other drugs (by about 3%). The authors theorize that drug-using kids may think that prescription and other drugs are harder to detect by urinalysis, so they switch from pot to something else. (This assumption is usually incorrect — most drug tests capture everything from heroin to Valium — although certain lesser-used drugs like the anesthetic ketamine aren't detected by the usual tests.)
Even after the University of Michigan authors controlled for socioeconomic differences among students and schools, they found no statistically meaningful difference in drug-use rates among students who attended schools that randomly drug tested and those who didn't. In short, kids weren't deterred from using drugs even when they knew they might be surprised one day with an order to pee in a cup.
Still, the behavior of high-school kids doesn't neatly correspond to that of their teachers — they may well change their behavior in response to random tests. Which leads to a more fundamental question: If we are serious about drug enforcement, why not require every American to be tested randomly, or at least every American who comes into contact with children?
One answer is cost. In the West Virginia drug-testing case, which is currently working its way through the federal court system, Judge Joseph Goodwin of the U.S. District Court noted that it costs about $44 a pop to do urine tests, which would cost the West Virginia school district in question about $37,000 a year. (Here's a PDF of Goodwin's preliminary injunction against drug testing.) That same $37,000 could easily pay for a full-time teacher, meaning that drug testing would have to be sufficiently valuable to displace an entire teaching position.
But the evidence suggests that drug use among teachers is not exactly a pressing problem. In 2007, the Department of Health and Human Services published a major study showing that people who work in education rank 18th out of 19 listed professions in the use of illicit drugs. (Those who work in food service, arts, retail and "information" services — like, um, journalists — were among the major offenders.) Only 4% of educators reported use of illegal drugs in the previous month, compared to 14% of construction workers, who work in a much more dangerous environment. The 4% figure for teachers is still too many, but it doesn't indicate an epidemic of intoxicated teachers that would justify a huge expenditure to curb.
What no one argues against — even attorney Michael Simpson of the National Education Association — is that teachers who are behaving erratically should be tested when their bosses suspect drug use. "If an administrator has a reason to believe a person is under the influence, the school should have the right to test," says Simpson. "But our members feel it's demeaning and unprofessional to make a teacher without suspicion go into a bathroom."
The matter won't be resolved without further studies on whether random drug testing actually reduces drug use, and we may get them under an administration less ideologically opposed to drug reform than President Bush's. But the data so far suggest that random drug testing is a costly, ineffective solution to a non-problem.
-------------------------------------
Thursday, Feb. 05, 2009, Time Magazine
Should School Districts Drug-Test Teachers?
By John Cloud
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1876840,00.html
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
