Student of screening of drugs is not efficient to reduce the consumption of drugs

ANN ARBOR, Mich-dépistage of drugs of the pupils in schools does not dissuade the usage of drugs, of the University of Michigan, the researchers concluded, on the basis of a big sample in several years national of high schools of the country and the medium schools.

Results were brought back recently in the Newspaper of School Health. Research questions the argument which was in the middle of justification for schools the adoption of a policy of screening of drug. Claim that screening is a dissuasive effect on the consumption of drugs was also a factor mattering in a decision shared recently by the Supreme Court of the States which confirmed the constitutionality of the screening of drugs at the students as a condition of their participation in extracurricular activities.

The authors studied the combination of data coming from inquiries performed in 1998, on 1999, on 2000 and 2001, representing the information of 722 secondary establishments of all nation, among which 497 high schools and 225 medium schools. Questionnaires were managed to an administrator of the school (in general the principal) in each of these schools to determine, among other things, the policies of screening of drugs of the school.

Auto-managed questionnaires were also given to the students first year in every school (8th, 10th, or 12th year), which determines if and which are detoxification products which they could use.

The inquiry constitutes the big only one or of samples representative of schools which were used to assess the effectiveness of the policy of screening of drugs.

The effects of trials
At every level of rank has étudié-8, 10 and 12 - the investigating officers found practically identical rates of consumption of drugs in the schools with screening of drugs and with schools which do not have it. For example, in the 12th year, 36 pierce non-tests of those of schools declared to have used some marihuana in the course of twelve months preceding the inquiry, against 37 for one hundred in the schools which did not test. The measures of consumption of drug examined were the prevalency and the frequency of use of the marihuana in the course of twelve previous months and the prevalency and the frequency of use of illicit drugs others than the marihuana in the course of the same period. (Prevalency refers to statement for one hundred any use for the period of 12 months.)

Performed supplementary analyses by concentrating on specific groups of pupils were also performed. In the high schools that the tested athletes, the use by the masculine athletes of the marihuana (or other illicit drugs) significantly did not differ from use at the masculine athletes in the great majority high schools who do not test their athletes. (There was no sufficient number of athletes female available to perform the parallel analyses for them.)

The investigating officers even looked separately to consumers of marihuana established, defined as being those of the students who declare to have used some marihuana on twenty or several times in their life, to see if the undesirable effects of tests could be visible at the users' heavier. But even in this group, the rate of use of the marihuana and other drugs in the previous exercise were practically identical in the schools which perform tests of medicaments in comparison with those who do not have it. Some 94 pierce both groups pointed out using some marihuana in the course of twelve previous months.

Further to the presentation of the article of magazine, the authors accomplished additional analyses in which the data of the national sample of 2002 were added to those already signalled for period 1998-2001. It was added 169 schools, what carries the total sample of establishments to 891. All results of the previous samples continued holding in the sample enlarged and updated. The investigating officers also carried particularly on possibility that the antidrug tests made haphazardly, in whom all student body is subjected on probation, could produce observable effects. Only seven schools on 891 polling declared to have such policy were every of high schools. No statistically significant difference was found in the usage of the students of the marihuana or of other illicit drugs between these seven schools and the great majority high schools which did not have unpredictable tests. Having controlled for types of served students and school level of the questioned pupils, there was practically no difference in the rates of consumption of drugs between these schools which had unpredictable tests and those who do not have.

The authors-Ryoko Yamaguchi, the Lloyd D. Johnston, Patrick Mr O' Malley, are every specialists of social sciences to the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research.

"We think that one of the reasons that the school so not much to test their pupils for medicaments is that it is about an expensive firm", comments Johnston. «Schools is very impatient of fund, and I would say that the results of our inquiry raise a serious question to know if the screening of drugs is a judicious investment of their thin resources. He am also very controversial with many parents and pupils», he adds.

"The way in which the screening of drugs was led in schools seem little promising. I do not doubt that it was possible to conceive a programme of screening of drugs which could dissuade the consumption of drugs adolescence, but at what monetary cost and at what price in terms of intrusion in the confidentiality of our young people?"

The researchers noted that about 19 out of hundred American high schools have some form of screening of drugs of the pupils. The group of students most often tested those is identified «for reason», which is based on facts or suspicion that they had used an illicit drug 14 for one hundred all high schools signals this practice. Much fewer schools point out that they test for quite other reason.

The athletes are the group most often tested, but only about 5 out of hundred schools point out that they trial athletes. (In 1995, the Supreme Court judged that the control of the sportsmen in a given school region was constitutional.) the pupils who come volunteers for tests are tested in a little less than 4 for hundred schools, as the pupils are him who were in probation school. The students participating in extracurricular others than athletics, subject of the recent decision of the Supreme Court, are tested at present that in about 2 out of one one hundred of American high schools.

State schools and secondary private schools are almost also likely to use tests of drug, but high the intermediate schools are distinctly more touchy than to make it. The size of the community has hardly trial report of schools or or not in the drug. Schools where the majority of the students are African American or in whom the majority are of Hispanic origin are no more touchy to test medicaments than those who are in white predominance. If something, them in May to be slightly less disposed to test.

The researchers polled the school administrators as part of a subsidy of the Foundation Robert Wood Johnson, in support of Youth, Education, and Society (YES) of study, an element of Foundation Bridging the Gap Initiative. This initiative is intended to examine the impact of policies, programmes and practices to the school, the community, and the levels of the State on the usage of substances by the young Americans. The students of the same school were questioned as part of the Observatory of future (MTF), study, financed by National Institute one Drug Abuse.

(Johnston is the main researcher at the same time of YES and studies MTF.)