Mandatory Drug Testing for Students in Ohio to take effect in 2020

Badin High school in Hamilton Ohio announced Tuesday morning that all students will be required to participate in random drug testing. Badin High School principal Brian Pendergest said in a press release, “Our objective is not to catch students doing drugs, our objective is to help students not do drugs.” which would questionably be the responsibility and decision of the parent and student and perhaps a medical professional but not the schools.

School officials say they have been carefully studying the issue of students and drugs and have decided after "serious consideration" that intrusive mandatory drug testing is the "best policy" the school could adopt.

Director of admissions and media relations, Dirk Allen told reporters that “The confidentiality issue is something we’re taking very seriously,” and test results will only be available to two school officials.

Students who fail a test will be refereed to confidential counseling based on recommendations made by the testing facility. Generally counseling is a recommendation reserved to a medical professional.

A study in 2013 funded and published by the National Institute of Drug Abuse found schools with mandatory drug-testing reported lower cannabis use ut higher use of harder drugs. It can take up to 90 days or more for THC to remove ones system in comparison to harder drugs like cocaine which only take about 3 days to be cleared from the body.

"Do you think maybe students in fear of being caught with cannabis in their system may be opting for harder drugs knowing they have a better chance of clearing their systems before testing?" -GIMJ'S 2 cents