Deterrent

So yesterday I happen to hear a snippet of news story that went something like this: A suburban teenager and her parents are suing the highschool she attends. Why? Because the school has random drug tests and they made her take one, under the pressure that if she refused or failed she would be kicked out of and banned from all extra-curricular activities. She passed the test, so got to stay in marching band or whatever, but she and her ACLU lawyer want to sue the school on the basis that the drug test without probable cause violates the idea of innocent until proven guilty and it hurt her feelings and maybe invaded the privacy of her urine. Something like that, I wasn't really listening yet at this point.

First off, stop whining. Most jobs require a drug test as condition of hire and many reserve the right to do "random" tests, too. And you can't sue them because you signed a contract which included, among many other things, giving away your right to keep all of your piss to yourself. So all she lost was the time it takes to give a stranger some waste fluid. There's no emotional trauma here unless she was stressing over the results because she'd been to a typical high school party, or if she got some on her hand. That could be traumatic.

However, the bit that got my attention was the school's position on their random drug tests. They said that the school did not currently have a drug problem, but the tests acted as a deterrent to keep the school from having a drug problem. A representative for the high school actually said that the deterrent of random testing would prevent students from using drugs because they'd be afraid of not being able to participate in extra-curricular activities.

Okay, change that last bit to some sort of alcohol testing and banning kids from sports and I'd say you might be doing something. But it hasn't been all that long since I was in high school, and here's the important bit: the kids who are doing drugs don't care if you kick them out of the high school's activities because they have an extra-curricular activity of their own that's more important to them, DOING DRUGS.

You idiots.