Drug Testing of High School Athletes

[Griff]

So we're afraid somebody is going to fly a chess board into a building?


Actually, I have doubts about many laws which restrict travel. The humiliation of going through the next generation of imagers is going to raise some serious doubts. My wife used to travel for a consulting company. Would she be willing to put up with those kind of intrusive searches? Probably not.

What I am inelegantly asking is what value are the school administrators and the individual chess players getting from the students humiliation? There is value in a safe flight. It is doubtful any lives will be saved by these urine tests but it is likely that some kids who would gain much from the competition and comradery of a club activity will not participate because they are easily embarassed. Some kids will choose not to participate because they are stoners. This would give them one less structured activity in their day possibly pushing them further into the drug culture. IMHO

[elSicomoro]

Hmmm...

Three things are coming to my mind on this one:

--The stir 4 years ago over Mark McGwire using andro.

--The US bobsledder thrown out of the Olympics for testing positive for steroids. He insists it was a contaminated supplement.

--This past week's episode of "Boston Public," which involved a situation like this.

What ever happened to good diet and exercise?

The supplement industry is booming. Lots of people use them, including younger folks. I'm no chemistry major (I dropped that after one semester), but I wonder what type of effects these supplements have on still-growing bodies, not to mention, long-term effects down the line. And then you have pot, coke, etc., which is another story.

I'm inclined to go with testing student athletes. It would 1) keep athletes on their toes and 2) get them prepared for what they may face in college, pro sports, and/or the Olympics. Keep the playing field as level as possible...hopefully.

I'm not so inclined to apply this to other extracurricular activities. It probably sounds unfair, but I don't really see a real need for it in, say yearbook or the chess club...yet.

Could you imagine it? Chess club members being tested for high levels of ginseng or ginkgo biloba.

[Phrontistes]

Doesn't the fact that the government is involved in the taking-away of privacy make it different than when you're involved with a private company? The Constitution does not apply to AA, Delta or Continental (I forget the wording exactly, but it's supposed to limit the powers of the government, right?) If one chooses to voluntarily surrender one's privacy in return for something else, the free market (within limits) allows this. If the govt. wasn't involved at all in airlines and security, you might see a new airline form without security procedures to capitalize on untapped demand (of conspiracy nuts etc.)

If the same thing is legislated by the govt., which is, essentially, a monopoly enforced by brute force, there are only two choices - drug testing or no chess (to resurrect my horrible example). This is written into law and pretty close to irreversible.

I can't think anymore (it's late and I have homework to do) and as I re-read my argument, it makes less and less sense. Ignore me now (especially Dhamsaic - I do not need to be ripped a new one

[jaguar]

As for private schools, well, there isn't much you can do about that. There are many studies about drugs affecting your work and schooling. Not only that, but I personally have witnessed kids getting into drugs and drinking and then flunking out of high school. Private schools need to sell themselves. They don't need newspaper headlines like "Calvert Hall student dies of overdose" and shit like that. They just don't.

No. They are attempting to institute mandatory drug tests for extracurricular activities. These tests would take place at the beginning of the year and then randomly thereafter. They're not preventing him from joining. They are demanding that you compromise. If you want to taste the fruit, you give something in return. I don't understand why it's so hard to understand the concept of give and take. You part with your money every time you fill your gas tank with fuel. HOW UNJUST! You just gave away some of your financial freedom! I KNOW! LET'S SUE!

Dham....what is this shit???
Wouldn't expect you to argue such an obviously see though argument and then to use a clearly pointless and misleading analogy is just...*sighs*

No. They are attempting to institute mandatory drug tests for extracurricular activities

BUllfuckingshit they are, they are slowing introducing mandatory drug testing, it’s just an easy way of doing it with - hey take a look, no justification. I mean private schools, fine, I don't give a fuck, the system produces spoon-fed morons who drop out of uni anyway, what does it matter, but public schools are another matter. What next? well gee if you want to do *that* subject you'll have to submit to drug test, regular cavity searches and random humiliation. Its a backdoor way of forcing all students to do drug tests, considering too that many schools force you to do at least one extracurricular activity (including mine). As for your analogy...wtf is that shit? Paying for a product = giving up personal freedoms with no just reason to join an extracurricular activity?

As for storm trooper drug raids, we've had one too, going to a high profile public school means our school cares more about image than anything else. They did exactly that, fire alarms, then full locker/drug search. The unprecedented move alienated a huge cross-section of the school, around 40(out of just over 1400, and I know that around 100 odd students weren’t caught, so it wasn’t even effective) students were caught, and expelled, but a petition signed by nearly everyone was submitted over it, as you can see, next time, we'll be ready – Media war. Net result? A few causal pot users were expelled, and nobody trusts the school administration *at all* a sad state of affairs when a school body such as ours boycotts the SRC as a sign of protest.

Oh, Phrontistes, don't get scared by dham's napalm drops, "fire and fury, signifying nothing......"

Originally posted by jaguar
Wouldn't expect you to argue such an obviously see though argument and then to use a clearly pointless and misleading analogy is just...*sighs*

Jag -

How do you figure this is a see-through argument?

Secondly, it's only a pointless analogy if you consider analogies pointless. If you don't, it's not. And it's not misleading. I will say it again - <b>You surrender something every time you get something worth having</b>.

Now. Consider this for a moment. The US Government is taking over security at airports. This means that they will be the ones performing the searches. They will be scanning bags and wand-ing passengers. They are more government and less commercial than the public schools. Based upon the 4th Amendment that Nic has posted, you would have a stronger case arguing against security at airports than you would against urine testing in high school "competetive extracurricular activities". Based upon the Constitution and its amendments, schools have more of a right to search students than the security screeners at airports will have to search you. Think about the precedent that this case will set (if decided in the students' favor) and all the nasty work that will have to go into undoing it when someone challenges airport security.

Now think about the fact that no one has much of a problem with airport security. It's a pain in the ass and can be time consuming, but that's part of the territory.

The same will be true with competetive extracurricular activites in Oklahoma now.

Personally, I think it's kind of silly and definitely unnecessary, but I don't think that the students have a leg to stand on. Maybe half of one. Maybe.

What next? well gee if you want to do *that* subject you'll have to submit to drug test, regular cavity searches and random humiliation.

You are very well read in conspiracy and how humanity will come to and end because of Big Brother. I think you need to balance it out with something about how humans are generally benign and dumb and don't quite have the desire or brains to pull off some of these things you accuse them of trying. You and I both know that cavity searches would never fly (unless it were the oral cavity), and including that in there is simply ridiculous. The uproar from parents would be phenomenal. The notion of cavity searches at school is absurd.

BUllfuckingshit they are, they are slowing introducing mandatory drug testing, it’s just an easy way of doing it

You know this in your omniscience?

There is certainly a possibility that they are moving toward that, yes. But I find it difficult to see how you can say, with any certainty, that this practice of urine testing students in "competetive extracurricular activities" is simply a giant ruse that will lead us into a world where all students are tested for drugs on a regular basis. The fact of the matter is that you don't <b>know</b> that's what they are doing. You have to look at their argument for what it is, not what it might be. You wouldn't want someone twisting your arguments or ideas such that the merit of your opinion was based upon what said opinion <b>might</b> be - you would want it based upon what said opinion actually <b>was</b>. Why do you twist someone else's argument then? Why do you turn urine testing on students in "competetive extracurricular activities" into the Orwellian nightmare that it's not?

[Vogue State]

Some concessions you make in life make sense. For example, you submit to security procedures on flights because there is an obvious potential for the shit to hit the fan -- you are stuck in a sardine can in mid-air for a few hours with a hundred or two other people, and you want to make sure none of those people are able to stop you from landing safely. Not to mention the safety of people on the ground should the control of the plane be taken from the pilot.

The security measures at airports are also in line with the specific threat we are trying to thwart. Mainly, they are trying to detect weapons and/or explosives, either of which has the potential to cause a catastrophe in the hands of an airline passenger. Note that you do not have to pee in a cup to board a plane.

Air travel is only necessary if you want to partake in a highly mobile, global lifestyle. Cars and trains are quite usable for intra-continental travel such as a New York-Seattle or Rome-Brussels trip. Note that when you drive a car you are subject to many restrictions -- you must have a photo driver's license, and in the U.S. a police officer can search your vehicle without a warrant if he can show some ``probable cause.'' This is because when you operate a car you have the potential to cause some havoc, and that risk has to be countered. To board a train you don't even need to have ID -- just buy a ticket with cash and hop aboard.

dhamsaic's recurring point seems to be that since there will always be justified, necessary concessions in life, we shouldn't think twice about creating new, counter-productive, overly intrusive, unjustified and unnecessary ones -- apparently just to send the message that "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch!" Hopefully, dh, you won't take this personally; I actually get much enjoyment out of your usual posts. However, I find your "point" in this thread to border on the asinine.

Sure, life is not fair. Nor is anyone suggesting that we try to grab this law of nature by the horns and attempt to create a rosy, pink 100% fair world for everyone. The question is: Why go out of our way to be explicitly unfair for no good reason whatsoever?

There is no constitutionally guaranteed right to a Chess Club, to be sure. Where's the constitutionally guaranteed right to a Chess Club free of potheads? Failing that, where is the threat from kids who would come to a Chess Club and play while stoned? Failing that, what are we hoping to achieve, what do we as a society stand to gain, from instituting such a policy across the nation? If it is not to protect rights, or to counter a threat, what is it for? (Answer this question to my satisfaction, and I'll owe you a drink. However, "to make money for the drug-testing industry" or "to psychologically prepare students for an overly intrusive police-state in the future" will not satisfy me).

There is no constitutionally guaranteed right to pizza, either. Would you object to a policy that called for the urine testing of anyone who wants to buy pizza? Sure there's no good reason for it, but the pizza industry still doesn't want to serve heroin addicts or cokeheads, so why shouldn't they be allowed to reach into your bladder to make sure you're an acceptable client? After all, life's all about making sacrificies. You want pizza, you pee in the cup. If you don't want to pee in the cup, you can always go eat Chinese with the other druggies.

Well, thanks for reading the awfully long post if you made it this far. BTW, I too have made the concession of taking a drug test for my current employer, for what it's worth. That doesn't mean I'm going to consider it an immutable part of our social structure from now on.

VS -

I have to keep this short because I have work to do, but I will try and respond to your points real quick.

First, let me state that I agree with the statement that testing students in "competetive extracurricular activities" is <b>stupid</b>. It is a waste of money. At the very most, urine testing should extend to athletes. That's it.

That having been said, I don't think that the students challenging the practice have a leg to stand on. They will lose, and rightfully so. They are challenging it with improper ammunition. Appeal to the taxpayers and say "this program is ineffective and wastes money; demand to have it stopped!" It is well within the bounds of the law to test students for drugs so long as they are given an opt-out (i.e., don't join the chess club). Some even think that it may be constitutional to test all students anyway. That's not what we're talking about, so we're not going to go there. But it's just to illustrate that the testing of students in "competetive extracurricular activities" is constitutional.

Now, I personally have no problem with testing athletes for substances. Here's why: it <b>is</b> of a real benefit. We do stand to gain. The world has lost many great athletes to drugs. The one I mentioned earlier, and the one that's closest to me, is Len Bias. If you don't know who he is, do a Google search. In a nutshell, he was probably going to be bigger than Michael Jordan. He was the University of Maryland's all-time highest scorer until this weekend, when Juan Dixon broke his record. He was first draft pick in '86 to the Celtics. He died from cardiac arrest induced by cocaine. His legacy now, instead of becoming the greatest NBA talent in the history of the league, is the cautious tale of athletes and drugs. Sadly, it seems to have been forgotten by many.

Even putting Len Bias and "illicit narcotics" aside, performance enhancing drugs have had a negative effect on sports. They give an undeserved edge to players, which ruins the competition. Sports aren't particularly interesting to me, but winning or losing in, say, the Olympics or a high school lacrosse game is <b>life</b> for some of these people. It <b>matters</b> to them. Cheating should not be tolerated, and stamping that out is simply good practice.

Lastly, and probably most importantly, are pain reducers in sports. Many injections and pills are used by athletes to reduce the pain so they can play. There's a big problem here - many of them wind up permanently damaging their bodies. Your body hurts for a reason - something is broken! Don't ignore it. Many athletes don't understand this (let's face it, not many football pros are intellectual giants, no offense to them), and they wind up regretting it later. I don't think we should set out to save everyone from themselves, but I think people should understand what they are getting into before doing it. If you choose to ruin your knees, that's fine. But I want you to understand what you're doing before you do it.

Drug testing can catch and prevent all of those. Whether or not you agree that those are benefits to society I'm not sure, and you don't need to buy me a drink even if you do - I don't drink. What I think is important is that we, as citizens, become more aware of what exactly our rights are and what we can do to fight gross tresspasses. Fighting this with the 4th Amendment is absurd. It is truly absurd. It is conditional. If a cop came up to you on the street and demanded to search you, he could not do so. You could sue under the 4th Amendment. If he came up to you and said "Yo, If I give you a donut, can I search you for weapons?", you can't do anything. It would be absurd to try and sue under the 4th Amendment because it was conditional; you could simply refuse the donut and walk away.

There's still more to respond to and this is long already, so I'll get to it later if I feel like it. In the mean time, please read over this post a few times and consider the validity of its points and the absurdity of arguing drug searches under the 4th Amendment in this case.

[jaguar]

Secondly, it's only a pointless analogy if you consider analogies pointless. If you don't, it's not. And it's not misleading. I will say it again - You surrender something every time you get something worth having.

Somethign reasonable mabye. To take your petrol thing, the guy givng you the petrol has to buy it shimself, not to sell it at the same or a higher price would disadvantage him whereas a school not drug testing students doesn't lose something as a result.

You are very well read in conspiracy and how humanity will come to and end because of Big Brother. I think you need to balance it out with something about how humans are generally benign and dumb and don't quite have the desire or brains to pull off some of these things you accuse them of trying. You and I both know that cavity searches would never fly (unless it were the oral cavity), and including that in there is simply ridiculous. The uproar from parents would be phenomenal. The notion of cavity searches at school is absurd.

The cavity search but was sarcastic, the point was real. Think about it, waht better way to justify it, sport they already do professinaly, then just spread it form there, *most* peopel are indeed pretty dumb, the not-so-dumb ones are usually the ones in positions of power. ANd don't tell me they don't have the desire to do it.

You know this in your omniscience?

NO, but its where it is leading, drug testing for private schools, workplaces, then extracuricullar activities, medial checkups? gee certianly starting to cover most ground, add a few more and you hove close to blanket coverage.

That having been said, I don't think that the students challenging the practice have a leg to stand on. They will lose, and rightfully so. They are challenging it with improper ammunition. Appeal to the taxpayers and say "this program is ineffective and wastes money; demand to have it stopped!" It is well within the bounds of the law to test students for drugs so long as they are given an opt-out (i.e., don't join the chess club). Some even think that it may be constitutional to test all students anyway. That's not what we're talking about, so we're not going to go there. But it's just to illustrate that the testing of students in "competetive extracurricular activities" is constitutional.

There is usually little correlation between what is legal and what is right, or justified na dsometimes, what is allowed. All power can be abused, doesn't mean it or, or it should.

[Nic Name]

Schoolchildren Strip-Searched for Lost $5

Fri Mar 22, 8:13 AM ET

KANSAS CITY (Reuters) - A school principal and a teacher were ordered to stay home from school on Thursday after a class of third graders were strip-searched when $5 in lunch money disappeared.

The money did not turn up in Monday's search of the 26 students, who were between 8 and 9 years of age.

"There was a strip search. The kids were asked to take off their clothes. The female teacher searched the girls and the male teacher the boys," Kansas City School District spokesman Edwin Birch said.

Pitcher Elementary School Principal Jana Schwimmer and an unnamed teacher were ordered to stay away from work, though not officially suspended, pending an investigation of the incident, Birch said. It was not clear why both teachers were not removed.

Under Missouri rules, schoolchildren can be ordered to empty their pockets but not strip-searched.

[Griff]

Originally posted by dhamsaic
...while dubbing the latter as some gross conspiracy to erode the rights of American citizens.

Creating a precedent does not involve a great conspiracy. Its only a matter of people not asserting their rights when authority demands submission. Each time someone rolls over for something like this, authority assumes that power and human nature being what it is will eventually ask for the next submission. As Senator Alan Simpson put it, "There is no "slippery slope" toward the loss of liberty, only a long staircase where each step must first be tolerated by the American people and their leaders."

[Vogue State]

dh - thanks for the reply. I concede that testing athletes for performance enhancers, pain killers, and the like is justified. I'm having trouble swallowing your Len Bias argument, though. What makes basketball so special that we should protect only possible basketball greats from shooting themselves in the foot? "That Johnson boy coulda been a great computer programmer if he hadn't OD'd on smack/shot himself in the head/drove his car off a cliff." Institute narcotics testing and a ban on driving licenses for CS undergrads? I dunthinkso.

Anyway, sorry about that...back to the subject. I'm glad to hear we agree that the idea is ludicrous. I am also hopeful that you agree with me that it ought to be illegal, whether it currently falls into the scope of the Constitution, any existing Federal laws or not. I see the situation a bit differently than "Yo, I'll give you a donut if you let me search you for weapons." More like, "Yo, you can't go into the donut shop you have breakfast at every morning, until you let me strip-search you for weapons." Even so, there are two key differences between your child's Chess club and your favorite donut shop: first, the former is funded by the government and intended to be available to "all", at least in spirit; and more importantly, the Chess club is a monopoly. You can always find another donut shop, but if you're a quiet, brainy 9th grader there's only one place you're going to go to get to play chess and meet other students like you from your school.

Sure, we can say "but only if you don't mind staying away from all substances we don't like and letting us inspect your urine on a regular basis to PROVE it" -- but we've both agreed that this is stupid. It's not doing anyone any good, unless we are specifically aiming for a society full of alienated, cynical and pissed-off people. The justices, in deciding this case, probably thought along the lines of "We need to fight the Holy Drug War, and this seems like it can slip right by the Constitution on a technicality, cool deal, let's do it!" Were I in those shoes, my line of thought would predominantly be "How can I protect as many rights as possible with this measly little amendment given to me."

Maybe that's just me. However, there is no reason for this ridiculous drug war and its rhetoric to keep advancing deeper and deeper into our collective brains. How many people are actually convinced that there are crazed marihuana fiends plotting to take over the chess club, anyway?

[russotto]

Originally posted by Griff
As Senator Alan Simpson put it, "There is no "slippery slope" toward the loss of liberty, only a long staircase where each step must first be tolerated by the American people and their leaders."

Whether a slope or a staircase, we've already slipped and are heading down it head-over-heels.

[Undertoad]

To put things in perspective, I believe that during the year that Len Bias died, 800 people died in the same way.

That sounds like a large number, but at the same time there were probably about 50,000 auto deaths, 700,000 heart disease deaths, 70,000 Alzheimer's deaths, etc. 800 is a tiny number.

Furthermore, Mr. Bias' death was probably caused by these attitudes about drugs and athletes. He went through three heart seizures before his friends called for help... probably because everyone felt his ball-playing future was on the line. If he'd gotten help sooner he probably would have survived.

[tw]

Too much of what has been posted suffers from too much talking past one another. Some reasons why.

First, define drugs. Performance enhancing drugs (steriods), hazardous recreational (heroine), non-hazardous recreational (mariguana), hazardous legal (cigarette), etc?

Then do we discuss based upon laws made by brided politician or upon the real merits (defeciencies) of the drug?

Do we seek to identify drug users to punish or help?

My personal opinion: hazardous drug users such as heroine, cigarettes, alcohol, and cocaine require help. Just punishing them by banning participation is counter productive (but very much part of the right wing Republican mainstream). Helping requires numerous steps including getting the addicted to identify that they are an addict, getting users to appreciate the problems created for himself, and taking the user through rehab - a process that easy includes multiple relapses. Relapse - the sole reason that right wing extremists say all drug treatment is wasted money.

What good is banning people with such problem from programs (ie chess) that could only help them to recover? Notice that I have just said screw the law. Too many drug laws are not based upon solving the problem because those lawmakers regard those with the problem as 'Them'. Only 'Them' sells or uses mariguana. Therefore 'them' must suffer mandatory sentences equivalent to murder. Laws are irrelevant until the purpose of those laws are defined - based upon logic - not politics.

Appauling is the punishment of mariguana users. They are not a threat to anything but their own performance. A mariguana user will obviously see his own mistake when he starts losing every chess game. Banning him from chess will only make the non-hazardous entertainment drug user less likely to see the error of his ways.

Regardless of the Supreme Court or the myopic laws, the only important point is how to get the individual to see / appreciate problems created by himself. To make help available. That Supreme Court ruling ignores (as it legally should have) the whole issue of drugs - how to get a user to want to get help and why is help routinely not available. Why did a drug usering neighbor have to rob a local gas station of $20 before he could get treatment? The crime here is government response to the problem - not the drug user.


Then there is the performance enhancing drugs. There is a point where banning maybe appropriate. If one wishes to excell above others today at the expense of 20 years of life, then one appropriate measure is to make such drug taking unprofitable - ban him from the sport.

If laws were based upon solutions rather than political bribes, then we would be discussing the rights of these drugs in terms of "does the government have the right to interdict into your actions for your own personal benefit". But we are not asking such questions because too many laws are based even on this most absurd condition - mariguana is more dangerous than murder, but cigarettes are OK.

The whole problem with the Supreme Court ruling and the debate here is that even basic knowledge is thrown away. Even basic definitions are not defined. Does government have the right to step in when you are in touble? Usually. But we are not even discussing that. We have associated Heroine with Mariguana and and declared cigarettes as safe. Therefore all arguements are invalid. Until basic definitions make sense, then everyone will simply argue past one another.

[Nic Name]

A mariguana user will obviously see his own mistake ...

when he runs his post through a spell checker.