Drug Testing High School Athletes

 

One issue brought up in a discussion in my American Government class on civil liberties was drug testing. The professor first asked, “Should all high school students be drug tested?” The answer was a resounding “No”. The next question was: “Should high school athletes be drug tested?” A resounding “Yes” answered. I disagree with the arguments made for both cases, and this is my liberal and dissenting opinion on these matters.

 

Let’s start with testing athletes first, and this will lead to the argument for testing all students. The first reason given for testing athletes is to eliminate competitive imbalance due to steroids, supplements, drugs, etc. This I agree with and I believe that drug testing should be carried out for this reason.

 

The next argument was for the safety of the athletes themselves and their competitors. A specific example was that a football player hyped up on PCP could cause serious injury. Another example was that a shot putter high on marijuana could be dangerous to himself or the spectators. Now, while I agree with the points made on the safety of the athletes, I do not think that it should be limited to just athletes. Cannot the same safety issues arise for people on drugs in the general public? Could someone come to school on PCP and start beating people up? Could someone on pot drive home high and cause and accident? The issue of safety cannot just be limited to sports; safety is a universal concern.

 

One specific example against the testing of all students was that you could have done weed over the summer, on your own time, and could have been clean for the time that you were in school. My assumption is that this argument says that the purpose of the drug testing is to enforce the drug free school zone edict and that any information collected on happenings outside of school would be an illegal search. Another argument was that once you let them test for one thing, then they could test for alcohol in people under the age of 21, or tar in the lungs of people under the age of 18, and further on down the slippery slope. My main issue with these arguments is that doing illegal drugs is illegal, underage smoking and drinking is ILLEGAL. Why can’t they test for it, why can’t they enforce the law? So the drug testers could not charge you based on the evidence they collect under the illegal search of drug testing during school, ok, but the testers would be alerted to your prior usage. You would not be liable for the things you did in the past, but they may want to watch you more closely in the future. They would have probable cause, based on past usage, to test you more often, or even during the summer on your own time.

 

That’s why I believe that testing should be extended to all high school students. The implementation of the policy would discourage illegal usage of drugs. The fear caused by “Big Brother is watching” could limit the amount of lawbreakers and could snuff out the ones that still continue to use.

 

I do not necessarily agree with testing all high school students, but in order to protect for the safety of other students, or the general public as a whole, testing should be allowed. There is a reason why these things are illegal, and it is for the safety of the public. So, if they took out the “testing to ensure the safety of the athletes” argument in the testing of athletes, I would agree with it. Only test to eliminate competitive imbalance due to drugs, or only say that you are testing for it. If the issue of safety is used, I believe that the testing would have to be expanded to all high school students.

 

Besides, there would be more work for lawyers if they had testing for all students. To err is human, and mislabeled or incorrect tests would definitely bring about lots of law suits.