Drug Testing

I am pulled between the specifics of the law and the morals that drug testing infringes on. My heart and personal opinion pull me to believe that drug testing should not be done in schools. This is because I feel that there are certain people that should be exempt from drug testing. For example, if someone was taking prescription drugs that were prescribed to them for a disease then most of the students will feel violated by giving that information to the school. There are reasons why they have not told anyone about their condition; it is because people will judge them and look differently towards them knowing that the student has depression, AIDs, or anger issues. I feel that in Petitioners v Lindsay Earls they explain that there was a documented occasion when a choir teacher left the list of prescription drugs that the students were taking in plain view for the kids to see. This way all the kids could find out that Jimmy was taking antidepressants for his depression which would be awful for him. At a point were he is trying to be more social all the kids are making fun of him for being depressed. That is not what Jimmy would want and would only make his situation worse. However, I have to agree that the law does say that drug testing in schools is a completely legal exception to the 4th amendment because the government's interest in keeping the schools drug free. This means that I believe that if drug testing is implemented in a school there will be an exception for students to take drug tests from an outside organization or their doctor in order to keep their personal medications personal.



I read the article on the Missouri case where they searched the backpacks during a lock down drill. This made me think that could they bring in a dog to sniff for drugs and gunpowder as well? And if the dog finds anything then that is reasonable suspicion to search the bag. So what I am wondering is how can the government determine what evidence for reasonable suspicion is reasonable I guess.