AHS Views

Chicago’s St. Viator High School is taking hair samples to test kids for drug use. So far, they’ve tested about 500 kids – half the student body – and only two tested positive. In the face of national statistics, this sounds pretty impossible. 10 percent of high school seniors have taken Vicodin according to a 2006 National Institute on Drug Abuse survey, and more than 36 percent of ninth graders reported drinking in the month prior to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevent (CDC) study. Obviously, there’s a ton of kids out there who need drug rehab, or are going to sometime in the future, but St. Viator’s testing isn’t catching it.

The problem that the testing does not include alcohol, prescription drug abuse, inhalants or steroids. The school says “We can’t be taking urine samples every day to find out if they’ve been drinking.” But what’s the point of testing if they’re not going to find the major problems?

They’re spending $75,000 on this program and so far have two positive tests. One of the teachers in the school did an informal survey on the students’ reaction to the testing: the consensus was that it might get them to switch from the drug they’re currently using to a drug not included in the test, or to alcohol.

The teacher said he wonders if the money would be better spent on drug education. Good idea. It might save 300 or 400 kids from having to find a successful drug rehab program in the future.