A Useful Excuse to Say No

The most important point to be made about the Fallbrook Unified High School District’s decision to try volunteer drug testing among athletes may be that the approach involves three elements of the community--the school, parents and student peers.

The plan adopted by the school board last week--and earlier adopted at Coronado High School--asks members of sports teams to sign up for voluntary, spot drug testing. Each week the names of five athletes will be randomly drawn for testing. Although there is no official punishment for testing positive, the parents of those who do will be informed. The test results are otherwise confidential, though the experience of other schools that use the program has been that negative test results often become bragging points.

School officials hope that the possibility of an upcoming drug test will give students a useful excuse to say no to friends suggesting drug use. They also believe the program may call attention to the good examples being set by student leaders, reinforcing the idea that there is nothing wrong in rejecting drugs.

In the long war against drug abuse among our youngsters, this will probably go down as only a minor skirmish. No one pretends that it’s likely to have much effect on students who already have drug problems. But this non-threatening approach may help some students who are not yet seriously involved with drugs, and that’s justification enough for trying it.