Drug tests helping reduce substance abuse

Arek Gnap, Brookside Lane
   It is no surprise at all that our precious town has a drug problem, especially in our school system. This has been known for years, and the high school has finally taken some initiative to fix the problem. Last year, the high school started a random drug testing pool, with any student wanting to participate in any extracurricular activity having to sign up.
   Kids were faced with the ultimatum of either staying with their drug habits, or stopping and participating in activities in their school. Hopefully, most of them chose the latter and the high school’s plan worked.
   But the thing now is how the school will work even harder and instill more programs like this to deter kids from the life-ruining substances.
   The school could possibly increase the punishments for failing one of these drug tests, like suspension and such. Maybe the school could even make it so that any student can get drug tested, not just a student that wants to participate in any extracurricular activity.
   I don’t know a lot of other alternatives, but I’m sure the school can think of something. I think that the school did a very good first step to fixing the problem, but they are nowhere near done.
   It’ll be a long time before we can honestly say that the majority of our students are clean.