Should there be random drug testing in schools? (It’s not a question for debate)

As a way of bringing up a drug free generation, I think this should not even be a question for debate.  With the rate at which the youth are embracing drug abuse, I think that drug testing should even be done from house to house!

Thursday, March 27, 2014

As a way of bringing up a drug free generation, I think this should not even be a question for debate.  With the rate at which the youth are embracing drug abuse, I think that drug testing should even be done from house to house!

If the school announces that the drug testing exercise will take place, chances of the drug abusers missing school on the testing day are high. 

With the high rate of alcohol and drug consumption amongst the youth today, I believe these random drug testing exercises in schools will help provide ways through which the abusers can be taken to rehabilitation facilities before the addiction goes out of hand. 

Given the fact that most parents are even too busy to know what goes on in their children’s social lives as long as they send them to school, I believe the school should take up the initiative of curbing down drug abuse. The parenting role of late has been allocated to the teachers since they spend more time with the children than the parents. For example there are parents that have teenagers, they go to work at 6:00am and come back home at probably 10:00pm when the teenager is asleep. The parent doesn’t get to know how and where the child spent the day as long as they left money for food and transport for school. 

It’s because of such factors like peer pressure and lack of parental care and attention that teenagers get into drugs and eventually turn into full blown junkies. 

In the earlier days drug abuse was mostly associated with boys but of recent, even girls are indulging in drug abuse thanks to movies and music videos that portray it as a cool thing.  

Arguments such as random drug testing in school being a violation of the students civil rights should just be thrown out of the window if we are to raise a responsible future generation as well as save their lives. 

According to an online debate "Should drug testing be mandatory for high school students?” published on debate.org, one respondent argued that testing students for drugs in general will reduce the drug crime in the school and community. Eliminating the students’ use of drugs brings up their test scores, encourages students to do well in school instead of doing drugs, and makes the school a better place to be. 

Therefore since the advantages of random drug testing in schools out numbers the reasons not to do it; I believe it’s a practice that should be carried out in Rwandan schools.