Billings Gazette: Billings Catholic Schools to implement new drug testing policy this year; deadline is Friday

By Nick Balatsos

"Before sophomores, juniors and seniors at Central High can lace up their shoes or polish their instruments for practice this year, many will have to take a drug test for the first time.

That's because Central students face a new drug testing policy when they return to school on Aug. 25.

According to the new policy, students in grades 10-12 who wish to participate in "extra-curricular and co-curricular activities" will be required first to pass a drug test.

And afterward, samples of students in grades 9-12 taking part in activities will have random monthly drug tests.

For those wishing to take part in some fall activities, the deadline for the first drug test is fast-approaching.

Those wanting to play football, volleyball, soccer, golf or participate in cheerleading or band, must get their drug test completed by Aug. 15.

... "

Read more: Link to Billings Gazette article.

If I were a student at Central, I would tell them where they could put their cup.

Catholic kids: Guilty until proven innocent.

Extracurricular activities are not a right. They are a privilege. If you want to participate then follow the requirements. Too often kids and parents do not follow the requirements but think they are entitled to participate no matter what. Good for you Central for requiring this. Too many kids are using drugs and the parents are blind to it. If you are innocent you have nothing to fear but fear itself.

Where are the righties and their "mind your own business" opinions on this thread? They favor the American Taliban, I guess.

Why Privacy Matters Even if You Have 'Nothing to Hide'

I'm all for drug testing student athletes. They have to do it in college and professional leagues. Why not start now to ensure an equal playing field?

[This message has been edited by celeste williams (8/15/2014)]

All this panic about drug testing . . . it costs money and odds are very good that nothing will turn up. Why? Student athletes, members of band and drama, are the LEAST likely to be using in the school. The stoned slacker is not going out for extracurricular activities.

But it makes grownups feel as if they are 'doing something.'

You want to arrest me for suspected drug use with adequate cause and test? Fine. You want me to pee in a cup just because it makes some one somewhere feel superior and some one else is making money on it? No way, Jose.

We have let the police state go too far in the country and this is just part of that.

The premise of "random" drug testing seems especially suspect. "I am going to test people for drug use because I want to stop the behaviors that drug use causes. However, because I am unable to identify these undesired behaviors in the students I will resort to testing them at random."

If you have students that are causing trouble, deal with them. Leave the rest of the students alone for crying out loud.

I'm not talking about the stoners. I'm talking about steroids and illegal enhancements. Equal playing field for all. I have no idea why they would be testing the band though.

Nuns with rulers would make this unnecessary.

It is stupid for some to try to make this a political issue. Good move on the part of Central.

Only stoners use. Ha ha. Get your head out of the sand and take a good look. Your honor student s also use as well as the average student. Drugs a far more rampant then you think. I watched students smoking a joint and then walk into the high school. All of them were on the Cowboys football team. Drugs are every where. You are a fool if you think kids don't use drugs. Lots of adults show them how.

I am specifically talking about performance enhancing drugs. Not pot. Pot doesn't give a player a leg up on the competition. Yes, I know kids of all cliques smoke pot. We have 5 teenagers ourselves.

They're not testing for PEDs.

GMBJG wrote:

I watched students smoking a joint and then walk into the high school. All of them were on the Cowboys football team.

Sounds like Custer County needs to do testing too.

Oh Geez.

Celeste said:

I have no idea why they would be testing the band though.

Are you kidding?!? Do you know what can happen to a trumpet in the hands of a stoner? It's pure bedlam, I tell you. Pure bedlam!

A girl athlete in our class who did basketball and all kinds of other curricular activities was doing cocaine. She died while at basketball practice when her heart burst. So you can't just say "the stoners" because there are more drugs being used than pot, and these are the drugs they are very worried about because the combo of maximum exercise and these drugs can kill. Drug testing should be used for sure it is to save our kids lives! Not only their present but their future

Several states decided to test welfare recipients to stop all those lazy *ss stoners from getting help. Turned out welfare recipients use way less drugs than the general population. The programs were promoted to save the states money by kicking people off welfare. Cost the state a huge pile of money (made money for the drug testing companies who were often run by friends of important politicians. What a coincidence.) and proved poor people who can't afford food often can't afford drugs.

These programs are designed on two principals: guilty until proven innocent and drug testing will somehow make a difference. They are wrong on both counts.

Yes, kids use drugs. Kids have used drugs for years. Good kids use drugs. Bad kids use drugs. But random testing is for the comfort of the adults. It is not designed or intended to help the kids.

There's no point in testing for recreational drug use. The only testing I agree with is PED's. What is Billings Central trying to accomplish with only testing for recreational drugs? That is a parents job.

Amorette Allison wrote:

"These programs are designed on two principals: guilty until proven innocent and drug testing will somehow make a difference."

You're leaving out that there is big money involved.

"...

Marijuana legalization advocates like to point out that pot is safer than alcohol, if for no other reason than no one has ever died from a marijuana overdose. They also like to point out that the booze industry has been working to subvert drug policy reform for decades, at least going back to the early 90s when the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) FOIA’d the donation records for the Partnership for a Drug-Free America and found that it had accepted large donations from Jim Beam and Anheuser Busch.

Alcohol companies were less obvious about their opposition to legalization after being outed by NORML. That lasted until September 2010, when the California Beer and Beverage Distributors donated $10,000 to a police-run campaign opposing Proposition 19, California’s marijuana legalization initiative.

..."

4 Industries Getting Rich Off the Drug War


"...

Today, drug testing is a multi-billion-dollar-a-year industry. DATIA [Drug & Alcohol Testing Industry Association] represents more than 1,200 companies and employs a DC-based lobbying firm, Washington Policy Associates. Hoffmann-La Roche’s former consultant, David Evans, now runs his own lobbying firm and has ghostwritten several state laws to expand drug testing. Most significant, in the 1990s Evans crafted the Workplace Drug Testing Act for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), of which Hoffmann-La Roche was a paying member. Laying out protocols for workplace drug testing, the bill—which has been enacted into law in several states—upheld the rights of employers to fire employees who do not comply with their companies’ drug-free workplace program.

..."

How Big Pharma Lobbyists Are Bringing Mandated Drug Tests To A State Near You

And it's the authoritarian thing to do. Mostly that.

Amorette wrote:

These programs are designed on two principals: guilty until proven innocent and drug testing will somehow make a difference. They are wrong on both counts.

Amorette:

That would be "principles"

Remember, the "principal" is your pal.

I get to be the grammar po-lice! Yay!

[This message has been edited by Bob L. (8/18/2014)]

I get to be the grammar po-lice! Yay!

You should be drug tested.

And tased.

You guys are just mean.

Don't tase me. Bro.

I would never tase you, Bob L.

Dave, thank you for the post on the drug testing industry. I had no idea it had that volume of business.

Today, I listened to a piece on NPR about the billions we have spent building giant fences around Mexico, while Congress funds it time and time again, with no positive results. The Texas landowners who live next to the fence said emforcement was a complete joke.

Yes, once a new bureaucracy of government funding comes around, a new voting constituency arises, and we the taxpayers get stuck paying for crap like failed drug testing and border control policies. But the Congress and the legislature refuse to do anything that might actually help someone.

Well, they WANT to do stuff, or so I'm told, it's just that the niCLANG demoncrat meaney in the White House just hurts their delicate fee-fees whenever he gets in front of a podium.