President Bush recently suggested wider funding be provided for programs that would drug test high school students interested in joining extra-curricular activities (The Detroit News). Now, fighting drug use among high school teenagers is a noble cause. It is reasonable to assume that the earlier drug abuse is prevented, the less likely it is students will experiment with illegal drugs.

Stopping abuse before it starts in high school is an effective and usually cheap measure. However, there are some fundamental problems with drug testing high school students who want to join extra-curricular activities.

Although most schools have an earnest desire to help all their students, they would be testing the wrong crowd. Students who want to get involved are not the typical students who are at risk for drug use, and yet they have become the targets.

The rationale behind testing students interested in after-school activities is that those activities are a privilege, and not a right, so schools have authority to test students.

This notion goes against a main principle of our legal system. The burden of proving guilt in this country rests solely on the accuser, not the accused.

A mandatory test presumes the student guilty of a drug abuse problem — without any probable cause, other than being a student and a teenager. Sure, teenagers statistically abuse drugs more often than adults, but that does not warrant different treatment based on that factor alone.

It could be argued that based on certain statistics showing the disproportionate number of black males in prison (the causes of which are up for debate) means they are simply more violent.

Then you could argue that before you would hire a black man it would be reasonable to subject him to a personality profile to gauge his aggressive tendencies based on the color of his skin alone. This, of course, would be ludicrous, and an infringement on the man’s rights. That same principle is at work with drug testing these students.

You see, in this country, we presume innocence first. Some bad guys might get away, but that is just one price we pay for freedom.

Widely used drug testing isn’t even all that effective. Standardized urine tests are good at detecting some substances in urine while missing other, possibly more dangerous, drugs. Marijuana is easily found because it stays in the body for days and even weeks after one use, while harder drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamines leave the body more quickly and are less likely to be found.

Even alcohol, the biggest killer drug among teenagers, can only be found while the student is still intoxicated. So unless Johnny on the badminton team shows up drunk for his test, he can easily cover up his potential alcoholism.

Or he might get the idea that since he can’t get away with using marijuana, he might move onto something harder that he can hide from the school.

False positives are also a problem with these standardized, quick-to-use tests — they can be caused by such innocent substances as Advil or poppy seeds.

Studies conducted by the University of Michigan indicate that drug testing students does not even discourage drug use. Reported last year in the Journal of School Health, the study concluded there was no difference in the rate of drug use among students who faced random drug testing and those who did not.

That means if you happen to be a drug-free student who is simply interested in joining a club, you might feel a bit alienated for having to prove your innocence of a crime you are not even suspected of committing.

This certainly undermines the trust that is essential to foster a positive relationship between school administrators and students.

If students who want to get involved feel like the school officials don’t trust them, they are less likely to trust school officials as well, and might feel less inclined to be involved at all.

Some schools have already gone too far. San Clemente High School in San Francisco already requires students to submit to random drug testing before they can even enroll in school (The Fresno Bee).

Students should expect more invasions of privacy like this because the program is apparently popular among parents. San Clemente could serve as a model for future programs around San Francisco and the country.