Tell Congress to cut student drug testing funding

Rev.Holden Greene

Tell Congress to cut student drug testing funding

Dear MPP supporter:

The U.S. House of Representatives will vote this week on an amendment to cut funding for a White House-supported student drug testing program. While MPP does not condone teen marijuana use, we oppose student drug testing — which the White House considers a "silver bullet" for reducing teen marijuana use — in large part because it encourages students to turn from marijuana to harder drugs such as cocaine, heroin, and alcohol, which are less detectable by drug tests.

An amendment introduced by Congressman Bobby Scott (D-VA) would cut $10 million from the federal student drug testing program and instead use the money to fund the Reintegration of Youthful Offenders program, which funds occupational training, apprenticeships, internships, job placement assistance, and remedial reading and math instruction to help young offenders get back on their feet.

Would you please take one minute to ask your Congressperson to support this amendment, which could be voted on as soon as tomorrow (Thursday)?

It's easy: Just call the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121. Give the operator your zip code, and ask to be connected to your representative; you don't even need to know your representative's name to do this.

When the receptionist for the Congressperson — not the Capitol receptionist — answers, say something like: "Hi, this is [name]. I live in [city], and I'm calling to ask my representative to vote for Bobby Scott's amendment to the Labor-HHS-Education bill, which will be considered this week. The amendment would save the Reintegration of Youthful Offenders program by shifting $10 million from student drug testing to fund it."

Here are some talking points you may want to use:

• Numerous studies have found that forcing students to undergo degrading urine tests — often a condition of participating in extracurricular activities — has no impact on illegal drug use among young people.

• Drug testing can even lead students to use drugs that are more dangerous than marijuana but less detectable by drug tests — including alcohol, which causes far more student deaths each year than all illegal drugs combined and which is almost impossible to detect with urinalysis. (See sidebar.)

Please take one minute to call your representative today.

Thank you,

Rob Kampia
Executive Director
Marijuana Policy Project
Washington, D.C.
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**Ferre** · Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2005 10:15 pm Post subject:

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**Torkel** · Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2005 10:33 pm Post subject:

Just got thru participating in this...

Thanks for the heads up Wink

Peace,
Torkel
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