NCJ Number
208998
Journal
Criminal Justice Policy Review Volume: 16 Issue: 1 Dated: March 2005 Pages: 3-17
Date Published
March 2005
Length
15 pages
Annotation
In the context of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Board of Education v. Earls (2002), which affirmed the constitutionality of drug testing for public school students who participate in extracurricular activities, this article discusses the current use of drug testing in the United States, the legal doctrines and precedents that led to the Earls case, and the Court's reasoning in the case and its policy implications.
Abstract
The drug testing industry receives an estimated $737 million in revenue from approximately 20-25 million drug tests administered annually to Americans. A majority of companies in the United States administer pre-employment drug tests to job applicants. Prior to the Earls case, approximately 7 percent of public school districts used drug testing (5 percent for student athletes and an additional 2 percent for students engaged in other curricular activities). Private schools, which are unaffected by the Earls ruling, apparently use drug testing more often than public schools. Drug testing can reveal private information on the test participant. If a State or the Federal Government mandates such testing, the Federal rights of individuals subjected to the testing may be implicated. Such tests are likely to be considered by the courts as subject to the restrictions of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution; however, the warrant and probable-cause requirement mandated for searches may be circumvented when the government can show special needs beyond those associated with normal law enforcement. Legal precedents underlying the Earls case, notably those that have focused on school athletes, have considered the risks of drug abuse while playing sports as involving a decreased expectation of privacy, an unobtrusive search, and a severe need that is met by the search. In the Earls case, the U.S. Supreme Court cautioned that the desirability and wisdom of drug testing is an issue to be decided by local school boards, but in the case at issue, "Testing students who participate in extracurricular activities is a reasonably effective means of addressing the school district's legitimate concerns in preventing, deterring, and detecting drug use." One implication of this decision may be a tendency to expand the pool of students who may be subject to drug testing. 20 references