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Testing, Testing 1-2-3

We have spoken about drug testing our schoolchildren many times, including here, here and here. Unfortunately, although it flies in the face of common sense, it's an issue that doesn't go away. Dan Forbes in an uncharacteristically short piece, reports on a recent confab of experts, "Substance Abuse and the American Family", sponsored by our federal Department of Health and Human Services.

None of "the brightest group of individuals ever assembled under one roof to deal with substance abuse" were supporting Bush's proposed 23 million dollar boondoggle to drug test our kids. Quite the opposite.

Duke University's Dr. Cynthia Kuhn said that random drug testing doesn't actually decrease student drug use. Rather, it just reflects "the country's sense of desperation about drugs" and is part of the Bush administration's "punitive and legalistic approach." Said Dr. Ross B. Brower, a Cornell psychiatrist: "Testing to find a lot of low-level marijuana users [yields] pretty useless information."

Wade F. Horn, the HHS assistant secretary in attendance, had no response to the experts' blanket condemnation of the proposal. The prohibitionists never do when they are confronted with the hard facts that drug testing does not work.

Oddly, the most interesting input at the event was delivered by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA)—whose White House funded white paper on marijuana stated that medical marijuana use should be decided by doctors and scientists (as opposed to prohibition profiteers).

As Dan remarks, "Has anyone told Karl Rove about this?"