© 2024 WBGO
Discover Jazz...Anywhere, Anytime, on Any Device.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Senator Wants Drug Screening In NJ High Schools

Senator Joe Vitale
Phil Gregory

A New Jersey lawmaker wants to require high school students to be screened for the risk of substance abuse.

Senate Health Committee chairman Joe Vitale says his bill would have students in 9th through 12th grades answer questions about drug use as part of their annual health assessments.

           

“It’s not an overreach. It’s just part of the health screening. We couldn’t do mandatory drug testing. It would be the wrong thing to do, it would be unconstitutional, and that would be overreach. This is just having a discussion with the kid. In those states and those towns that have done this successfully, they have been able to identify hundreds of students who are at risk and offer them assistance.”

Vitale says the program could prevent students who are experimenting with drugs from becoming addicted and keep the growing opioid epidemic from getting worse.

“We certainly have to treat people who are now suffering from this disorder, but also we have to do all we can to prevent it from happening in the first place. This is a supply and demand issue. So as long as we can have a long-term strategy that can educate students in a meaningful way and screen them in a meaningful way that offers them assistance, we begin to shutdown the pipeline of abuse in future generations.” 

The screenings do not include drug tests.

Parents who don’t want their child to be screened could opt out of the program.