USA - Schools To Use Spray For Drug Detection

[chillinwill]

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Metro schools will start using a new spray to test students for drug possession, a method designed to keep illegal narcotics off campuses.

For years, Metro schools have relied on a dog to sniff out drugs at schools. However, assistant superintendent Ralph Thompson said with a high number of students being busted with pot and cocaine, they are adding a new search method.

Metro will be the first school district in Tennessee to use D4D drug detection spray. The test is said to be 90 percent accurate and can detect more than 10 different drugs based on a color chart.

School leaders said they will use the test on students' desks, cars, book bags and pockets.

Thompson said the new test will be effective in cutting down on drugs at school. Even if school officials don't find the actual drugs on a student, a positive test will give them reason to continue searching and notify parents.

"(Parents can be contacted, and we can) say, 'Hey, you know what? We didn't find 'X' on your child today, but this is what we did find. You might want to have your child tested. You might want to counsel your child,'" said Thompson.

Thompson said a positive reading does not always mean a particular student is using drugs, but they might be in close contact with someone who is. He said the district will always run several tests to find the source of the problem.

"We're going to continue to search and search and search until we can't find anything else," said Thompson.

Thompson said the equipment for the test will be free through a partnership with the National Institute of Justice. Metro schools will begin using the spray-test next week.

By Jonathan Martin
WSMV News
POSTED: 3:14 pm CST November 25, 2008
http://www.wsmv.com/news/18145960/detail.html#-

[Greenport]

Hmm...dunno if this is a good thing or not. On the one hand, it cuts down on drug usage in schools - on the other hand, it gives the schools a way to find out any drug that a student comes in contact with at any time, including past incidents.

What happens if a student was hanging out with some friends and they light a joint but he doesn't smoke...he goes to school and they for some reason spray this on his shirt and find marijuana residue and suspend him? Or if he was carrying something for someone else temporarily to keep them from getting in trouble, then later get called in and find the residue of that from the spray.

There are too many holes with this. But it looks like it's going to happen now doesn't it.

[crackcityrocker]

swim sure is glad he isnt in school anymore. this sounds ridiculous. why arent the dogs enough anymore? now they have to detect possible pass usage and residue? swim can understand wanting to keep drugs out of school, but since when did one of school's main focus become drug intervention? swim wonders how much money was spent on this that could have been put towards new books or similar.

[gmeziscool2354]

swims highschool in virginia is probably one of the best places in the area to find drugs. the deal is (or was, it was a long time ago) that gangs used minors to do alot of their petty crimes, including nickle/diming drugs. they found that they can exploit minors due to the lighter sentences given our in Junvenile court

this began to become a problem when students from other schools would come on to this campus to distribute narcotics, so it may not be the case

but lots of straight a college bound students have experiemented into the feild and very few of them get theirs lives f*ed up from doing so.

why f their lives up unnecessarily?

just my opinion.

Also, it seems that for most, the worst thing to come from casual drug use is a court date. is this generally the conclusion of most drug forum members?

[Desertfox]

^ Swim agrees with the above post. most lives are ruined due to the negative stigma of drugs in society not directly from the drug use itself. Which points to the fact that humans have not integrated certain aspects of their psyche into society so they act out their neuroses on the world's population. Instead of integrating those aspects they choose to classify it as this is bad and you need to stop doing it so we are gonna take everything you enjoy away from you, which inevitably makes the situation worse.

[Scrubbs]

Things look bleak for drug users in this school. Things like this push the envelope of intelligence so now these kids will have to be smarter about using or bringing drugs into school. It's only natural. There will always be a loophole.

Anyway what would school be without drugs? What would guitar class or art class be without a student being high off their mind?

Swim wouldn't know

[kb13]

Public school's won't get away with it! The lawsuits will be piling up.
I not a big supporter of public high schools, public school boards, and greedy teacher unions. Look at the per student costs of any public high school. Now compare that with any nearby private high school. Now compare the quality of education... In my area, the average cost per student at a public high school is $12,500 per year. The average cost per student at a private high school is $7,600 per year. Almost a $3,000 difference. Every time the local school district come with there hand out, you can almost be certain that it will all go towards wages & benefits. Oh, don't forget about stupid programs like this drug testing, because these programs are deffinetely more important than providing a quality education. this says it all. -

"We're going to continue to search and search and search until we can't find anything else," said Thompson

[Scrubbs]

Don't American schools have one of the lowest percentages of quality education? I remember back in Moldova in 2nd or 3rd grade learning some pretty tough concepts, then moving to America it was like falling back 3 grades.

You have a good point there KB13

[crackcityrocker]

privacy issues dont matter too horribly much. when youre at school, youre in their world.

[Waffa]

well yep... but still would be nice to enjoy yourself outside of school

[Sven99]

Were I a student I'd use the vagaries of the law against them.

blanket searches can be done by private facilities as a condition of being on the premises. In such circumstances (in clubs anyway) you can refuse, and leave. Would be hilarious if a whole load of students exercised their right not to be searched by leaving school en masse.

[MyNameisMJ]

This seems to me like an absolute invasion of privacy. While I may not be very privy on how this works, I can see contamination and false-positives being a very serious problem.

[Potter]

Seems like a real easy way for one kid to get another in trouble.

And as a lifelong stimulant user, who highly valued the privacy their schools gave them, would have been mortified at the possibility of something like this. You know there's no private way of doing this in a school. Kids find out that another has "good drugs", it's going to bring problems.

[doggy_hat]

Fuck school. It's an 8 hour a day prison, except you have to read a book.

[ComfortablyNumb]

God... dont they have better things to do than arrest children?

[DeathCell]

That's ridiculous, one more step towards a police state?