How to create drug addicts

If you want a guaranteed way to turn our children into heroin addicts just introduce random drug-testing in schools. Tony Blair’s latest tabloid-pleasing initiative is even more half witted than usual. Studies in America have shown that testing programmes, far from discouraging drug-use, merely push children into taking stronger intoxicants. It is an unfortunate fact that the mildest drug, cannabis, stays in the bloodstream for a month or more – whereas heroin, cocaine and ecstasy all vanish from the system within days. Teenagers who are worried about being tested would rather take hard drugs on a Friday, knowing all trace will be gone by Monday, than smoke a joint. Even if this were not the case, testing is unacceptably intrusive. Teachers should not have to act as policeman; neither is it any of their business what pupils get up to after hours. If a teenager’s drug habit is serious enough to affect his work, it will be easy to spot: if not, the school should keep its nose out of his business.