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Consumer Reports


More high schools using breath-testing machines to spot alcohol use

http://www.jewishworldreview.com | (KRT) Thought breathalyzers were just for cops? Guess again.

Increasingly, high schools across the country are deploying the devices at school dances and other campus events.

With drinking widespread among U.S. teens, breath tests for alcohol are just one of many tools educators are employing to fight back. And because the machines used to test alcohol levels are now extremely affordable - they're available on the Internet for as little as $50 - their use on high school campuses is spreading.

"The technology just gets cheaper and cheaper," said Michael Barnes, a trustee of the San Francisco Bay area's Albany Unified School District, which three years ago introduced the devices, often called Breathalyzers - at Albany High School. "It's always tempting to substitute technological monitoring for human monitoring."

Statistics on the total number of campuses using the breath-testing machines are hard to come by. But just one vendor, St. Louis-based Intoximeters, Inc., reports sales of about 2,000 units to high school campuses nationwide.

School officials say they've turned to breath tests to curb periodic alcohol-related problems at campus events, from students vomiting or passing out, to teens becoming contentious when confronted with their drunken behavior.


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"Students would show up drunk at the dance," said Nikolai Kaestner, student activities director at Palo Alto, Calif.'s Gunn High School. "It would take an hour before the kid would admit to it. Now we don't discuss it with them. We just Breathalyze them immediately."

Gunn began using the devices at dances last school year. To bypass potential legal challenges and community concerns about students' civil rights, Gunn - like most area campuses - tests students only if there's reason to suspect they've been drinking. The penalty for a positive result is a five-day suspension, which is reduced to three days if the student agrees to attend counseling provided by the school.

Anna Tong, a senior at Gunn, is not convinced her school's approach is effective.

"They just Breathalyze you if you're acting disorderly," Tong said. "People still manage to bring alcohol into dances."

Critics also argue that the tests might encourage students to turn to other drugs that aren't monitored, and that it does nothing to prevent student drinking off-campus, such as at dance after-parties.

But Kaestner said testing has made a difference at Gunn.

"We've had dances in the past where eight or 10 kids were suspended," Kaestner said. "Now we may have one kid."

Unlike at Gunn, Piedmont High School in the eastern San Francisco Bay area tests every student who walks through the door at a school dance.

"We felt it would be more of a deterrent if all kids were tested," said Pam Bradford, principal at Piedmont.

Bradford said it takes six to eight teachers a good hour to test all the students entering a dance, but that it has changed the character of the events.

For the last five years, Wilcox High School in Santa Clara, Calif., has used the machines on a suspicion-only basis at school dances, as well as at such events as senior picnics and grad nights - and even during the school day.

"Most of the time if we get a positive, it's here at school during the day," said Craig Williams, a vice-principal at Wilcox.

Most schools just use the devices for their own disciplinary purposes.

The courts don't consider the breath-testing devices used by area campuses as accurate enough to be introduced as evidence in court, said Capt. John Hirokawa of the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office. But this is not a problem for educators, who are generally looking for signs of any alcohol use, rather than to establish a specific level.

Teen drinking is down from the 1970s, but educators and public health experts are concerned that it's still widespread. The federally sponsored Monitoring the Future Survey for 2003 found that nearly 50 percent of high school seniors admitted drinking in the month before they were surveyed.

"I don't think it's a moot issue by any means," said Bonnie Halpern-Fisher, a professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco.

Teens acknowledge that they drink for much the same reason as adults.

"They just drink to have a good time," said Maxine Tuan, a senior at Saratoga High School.

Halpern-Fisher said alcohol testing probably acts as a deterrent, but needs to be backed up with other approaches.

"It's certainly not as good as prevention and education" and treatment programs, Halpern-Fisher said.

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