Exploring the promise of mandatory random student drug testing by comparing it to other school drug prevention strategies

DuPont et al. have done researchers and practitioners a favour by examining the key issues involved in mandatory random student drug testing (MRSDT), a controversial drug prevention strategy implemented widely in the United States. DuPont et al. conclude that MRSDT is a promising strategy worthy of continued scientific investigation.

In comparing MRSDT to other school drug prevention efforts, it is useful to elucidate the key assumptions underpinning the rationale of MRSDT, and how these compare to those of other prevention strategies.

As a universal prevention approach, MRSDT shares the basic strategy of traditional universal school drug prevention strategies that aim to encourage students to ‘just say no’, and the underlying assumption that drug use is a function of individual susceptibility to peer pressure. Unfortunately, traditional universal school drug prevention efforts that have been based on this assumption have shown only small, inconsistent and unsustained effects.

One reason why traditional universal school-based drug prevention approaches may have had limited success is that they assume optimistically that adolescent drug use is under the control of the individual student: once individuals are informed, they will abstain from drug use. This approach ignores the realization that adolescent drug use is influenced heavily by the individual's social environment

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