Department of Education (DepEd) dictates the
implementation of D.O. 40, s. 2017 also known as the "Guidelines for the Conduct of Random Drug
Testing in Public and Private Secondary Schools on all public and private
secondary schools in the Philippines." High school students will start to undergo random
drug testing starting this September 2017. Duterte administration’s “war on
drugs” prompts the execution of random drug testing to students as a way to address
the rising drug abuse rate amongst teenagers. The purpose of drug testing is to measure the
prevalence of drug use and to provide intervention programs. Science and
Technology Education Center – High School (STEC – HS) believes that this order
should be implemented because of the following reasons: it allows for early
detection, it can serve as a drug deterrent, it promotes the feeling of safety,
and lastly, it can aid in proper counseling.
The first advantage to point out is, random drug
testing allows for early detection of drug abuse. According to DepED secretary, Leonor
Briones on a CNN interview, "Random test aims to provide appropriate
interventions to those who will be tested positive for dangerous drug use, which
will help the student stop further use and/or abuse of the substance."
Drug test will help identify students who are using drugs, in this way, the
government will be able to control the growing number of drug-users through rehabilitation
programs. Early detection of drug abuse among teens is vital as according to a
2015 statistics of Dangerous Drug Board of the Philippines, around forty-nine
percent (48.85%) of drug-users started taking drugs in their teen-age years. This
means that the high school period is one of the most crucial moments for drug use.
In order to prevent future drug addicts, the government should first start
addressing drug problems of high school students.
Second, this institution thinks that the implementation
of random drug testing can discourage drug use among students. According to an
article of National Institute of Drug Abuse about the cause of teen drug usage,
peer pressure is one of the main factors of drug use. If a student will be
pressured to use drugs by his/her friends, he/she can now have an easy excuse to say
no to them. Also, the fact that the drug testing to various schools will be
conducted randomly, fearful drug-using students will most likely stop taking
drugs in order to prevent from being caught.
Some studies has shown that random drug testing
actually helps in lessening the number of drug-using students. An Example of
this a study conducted by National Center for Education Evaluation on 2010
entitled “The Effectiveness of Mandatory-Random Student Drug Testing.” The
study reports that students taking extracurricular activities from a school
that implements random drug testing had lesser percentage of drug abuse than
comparable students from schools without random drug testing.
Third, random drug testing brings a sense of school
safety and drug-free environment because it serves as an assurance to the
parents, students and faculty that there will be lesser drug-influenced crimes
that will happen inside and outside the school premises. In this way, parents
will be much more willing to send their children to school, knowing that their
children will not be harmed by drugs and drug-related crime.
Finally, drug test will aid in proper counseling. Drugs
can cause a great risk for drug-using students to perform badly in class. If
proper counseling and supervision will be performed early enough, these
students would be still be able to catch up and not suffer major losses. In
connection to that, the guidelines of DepEd Order No. 40 Series of 2017 have
set that the drug-identified students will be turned over to the Department of
Social Welfare and Development for rehabilitation and counseling. This
interventions from the government will solve the problem of drug abuse among
students.
In conclusion, STEC – HS believes that random drug
testing is an applicable program for aiding and preventing the drug problem of
the Philippines. The order presents practical
benefits that can not only greatly affect the present drug situation in the
country but also in the future terms. Even if the institution’s deems the
program feasible, there are still recommendation for the improvement of the
program. First, this program should scrutinize the test process and the test
results in order to prevent swapping of biological materials and inaccurate
results, respectively. Second and the last, the government should make sure to include the
rural or remote schools in the Philippines so that every student will benefit
from this order.
