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American Academy of Pediatrics recommends AGAINST drug testing in schools
As the Park City School District moves closer to drug testing our students, there’s one group adamantly opposed to the idea. It turns out that the American Academy of Pediatrics “opposes in school drug testing due to lack of evidence.” In fact they created a policy paper and technical report on it. Their main concerns?
- Limited evidence of efficacy
- Decreased participation in sports
- Breach of confidentiality
- Increases in use of substances not included on testing panels
- Increases in the number of students facing disciplinary action (whether official or not)
We find #4 interesting. During an interview on KPCW, Superintendent Ember Conley noted that drug tests don’t screen for synthetic drugs, which is the type of drug that allegedly took the life of two students in Park City recently. Does drug testing just drive other kids to those same dangerous, synthetic drugs because they won’t be caught?
Perhaps the better question is if your child’s pediatrician recommended something for your kid, wouldn’t you do it? Then why are we going to ignore their recommendation this time?
Parkrag
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In many cases, the best course of action is to do… nothing. The deaths were a tragedy, but I don’t think drug testing everyone will help, and it might actually make things worse. But apparently the goal here is to freak out and *do something*.
Pathetic. If this sort of culture of distrust of kids takes hold, I’ll be honest – we’ll move away.
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