Drug testing is a valuable tool

Inter Lake editorial

Credit should be given to the Whitefish School Board for at least creating a drug-testing policy. There's no doubt that drug use does occur among the student body, and the problem won't go away if we ignore it.

That said, let's also recognize that the drug-test policy adopted by the school board Tuesday is a compromise between what is most efficient and what is most feasible. Parents had raised concerns about the initial proposals for the drug policy, and they were greatly revised in the intervening months.

What is left is a reasonably efficient policy for suspicion-based testing for the entire student body. The more contentious random testing policy for students in extracurricular activities was scrapped for the time being, as always seemed likely.

Suspicion-based testing is certainly the least that schools should do to provide the community as much of a drug-free environment as possible. If there is behavioral or other evidence of students using drugs, that evidence should not just be ignored due to political expediency.

The policy will not catch those who are good at covering their tracks, but it will weed out the offenders who are most blatantly violating drug laws and provide a somewhat safer environment overall.

Speaking of the environment, it's good to see local business owners using eco-friendly products such as recyclable paper coffee cups and to-go boxes.

Down Under Distributing owner Nigel Cini sells "eco" coffee cups to wholesale customers and uses them at his five local Outback Java Shak espresso stands. Buffalo Cafe owners Charlie and Linda Maetzold use paper products instead of Styrofoam and took their recycling efforts one step further by serving beer in recylable aluminum cans instead of glass bottles.

These are just a couple of examples of the many ways Flathead Valley businesses are doing their part to be good stewards of the environment. Whether it's using green building techniques or promoting reusable shopping bags for customers, we applaud their efforts. We can follow their example by doing our part to recycle paper, aluminum, cardboard, newspapers and other materials.

Think about it the next time a clerk asks you "paper or plastic?" Buy a reusable bag and use it. Our landfill will be all the better for it.