THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 9, 1996 TAG: 9602090048
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Jennifer Dziura
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
IF YOU WERE listening to FM modern rock station 96X a few weeks ago, you probably heard what is commonly referred to as ``the pot song,'' the refrain of which is, simply enough, ``Let's go smoke some pot.''
According to Norfolk school officials, local high school students have been assimilating this suggestion so well that Superintendent Roy D. Nichols Jr. was prompted to say, ``We're hearing about kids smoking marijuana on weekends and evenings, and that scares me.''
I, like many people, fear violent, pot-crazed gangs. Oh, wait . . . there are no violent, pot-crazed gangs. Never mind, then. We'll just get down to business.
Because pot use is on the rise, Norfolk School Board member Robert F. Williams came up with what he thinks is a good way to yank the joints out of teenagers' mouths. He wants to screen student leaders for drugs.
Williams' legal justification is that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last summer that schools have the legal authority to test student athletes for drugs. The athletes, the court decided, were ``role models'' and thus needed to have their bodily fluids analyzed by lab technicians.
The Norfolk School Board is considering a proposal that would extend drug screening to class officers, band members and participants in ``extracurricular groups that represent the school system in public.''
Williams' opinion is that a teenage pot smoker, when told to give up either pot or his extracurricular groups, will choose the straight and narrow and become a good, clean-cut, all-American, non-pot-smoking citizen.
Enough. Now for the world that doesn't have Willy Wonka in it.
``Keep smoking dope,'' contemplates the teenage pothead, ``or stay in the Environmental Club. . . . Oh, look, I found a joint in the couch.'' The result here is probably going to be that the Environmental Club, and many other worthy organizations as well, would lose several valuable members who have questionable (and, yes, illegal) weekend hobbies.
Which brings us to the issue of role models. Are we now going to assert that it's impossible for a pot smoker to be a good role model?
Perhaps this is too obvious to even mention: The leader of the free world smoked pot, and he's busy negotiating peace in the Mideast. So, darn, I guess a Yale Law School grad and Rhodes scholar who worked his way up from a less than privileged background and is now the president of the United States is a horrible role model.
But, sarcasm aside, if the School Board is intent on a marijuana witch hunt, why look toward student leaders for glazed eyes and indolent expressions? It seems that this would be wildly ineffective. A proverb that I'm inventing right now states, ``If you're going to look for cockroaches, go someplace dirty.'' National Honor Society meetings, for example, are not particularly renowned hangouts for pot smokers.
And, finally, Kent Willis, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Virginia, believes, not surprisingly, that student drug testing is an ``irrational'' violation of our American civil liberties. ``It's Big Brother in action,'' he concludes.
Well, I've really gotten on quite a roll here, and I realize that some of you may be quite incensed. But when the smoke clears, maybe we and the School Board can burn the testing idea and find a better way to contribute to a joint effort against teen pot smoking. MEMO: If you'd like to comment on her column, call INFOLINE at 640-5555
and enter category 6778 or write to her at 4565 Virginia Beach Blvd.,
Virginia Beach, Va. 23462.
ILLUSTRATION: Drawing [cartoon]by PORTER MASON
by CNB