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Curbing drug use among students continues to be a challenging issue facing school districts and states across the country. According to the 2005 Monitoring the Future survey, an annual survey by the University of Michigan encompassing nearly 50,000 8th, 10th, and 12th grade students in more than 400 secondary schools nationwide, half of American secondary school students today have tried an illicit drug by the time they near high school graduation.
To combat the prevalence of drug use, school districts are bolstering prevention and awareness programs and implementing random drug testing. According to a survey of high school athletic directors conducted in 2003 by the National Federation of State High School Associations, 13 percent of the nation’s high schools have a drug-testing policy in place to test students for illegal or prohibited substances and another 17 percent indicated that they were interested in pursuing one. The survey cited the most common reasons given for not starting a drug-testing program as budget constraints (54 percent), lack of school board approval (51 percent) and legal concerns (50 percent).
Despite significant congressional, judicial and public attention to student drug testing, the small body of empirical research on the effectiveness of school-based drug testing programs is mixed.
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