cannabisnews.com: Guymon To Eliminate Drug Program Guymon To Eliminate Drug Program Posted by CN Staff on August 15, 2002 at 15:17:25 PT Local News Source: Amarillo Globe-News The Guymon Public Schools board of trustees decided Monday night to end the 3-year-old program that randomly tested student athletes and students in competitive extracurricular activities for drug use.Scot Dahl, vice president of the school board, said the program was administered by an outside drug-testing firm that provided a list of randomly selected students to be tested each month. "We didn't think it was the deterrent that we thought it would be," Dahl said. "We didn't think it was as effective with the money we spent on it."School officials started hearing stories about how students tried to beat the test by drinking bleach or researching test-beating techniques on the Internet, Dahl said.One student quit his athletic team before testing came up because he knew he had smoked marijuana over the weekend, but his test came back negative, Dahl said."Of people that called me, they were 100 percent in favor of doing away with the program," Dahl said. "A lot of them thought it was a big joke."The school board discussed the possibility of abandoning the program for the past few months, with those safety and effectiveness concerns in mind, as well as some unforeseen consequences, Dahl said."One reason was how many kids are not going out to extracurricular activities because they are afraid of being tested?" he said. "If they're not in school, they'd be out on the streets. If we could pull more kids in extracurricular activities where there's a little more supervision, then they wouldn't be on the streets where they can pick up drug habits."Now, the school district is looking to hire a liaison police officer who would be on-site at the junior high and high school and would look for drug problems in the total school population, Dahl said."He'd be trained to look for drugs and alcohol and he'd look at the whole student body, not just those in extracurricular activities," he said.The officer, who has yet to be hired, would be paid between $20,000 and $25,000, Dahl said. The district is waiting on a grant that would pay for the cost of hiring the officer, Dahl said.The district will also implement a Student Crimestoppers program and a teen court program, where a student would have to plead guilty to an offense before being "sentenced" by his peers, usually to community service, Dahl said.Quote by Scot Dahl: "Of people that called me, they were 100 percent in favor of doing away with the program. A lot of them thought it was a big joke." Source: Amarillo Globe-News (TX)Published: Thursday, August 15, 2002Copyright: 2002 Amarillo Globe-NewsWebsite: http://www.amarillonet.com/Contact: letters amarillonet.comCannabisNews Drug Testing Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/drug_testing.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #3 posted by letsgetfree on August 16, 2002 at 07:15:13 PT just keep wasting your money jeez you think that at a school they'd realize that EDUCATION is the best way to keep kids off drugs. Drug test and cops just teach em to lie to "the man" , but i guess they should learn that as early as possible, cuz when they grow up and they have a DEAth team crashing through their door maybe they'll be ready for em. [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by kanabys on August 16, 2002 at 06:49:33 PT I always thought that this would be the consequences of school drug testing. Now, it's starting to happen. HAHAHA!!! I hope it's a trend. I don't like the idea of the paid spy though :( [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by Professional391 on August 15, 2002 at 15:24:04 PT: Oh yeah Yup, just what they need: an office to 'look for drug problems in the student population.' Shyeah... [ Post Comment ] Post Comment