Just spotted on Damien Mulley’s blog that Enda Kenny wants to drug test schooldkids and that there is a petition online which calls for politicians to be also drug tested.

If Enda Kenny is seriously suggesting this, then I absolutely think the same should be done in the Dáil. What insanity.

According to quotes, Kenny thinks drug testing will discourage drug taking due to peer pressure. This is a stinker of an idea. As several other have asked, what happens when a child is tested positive?

There must be a better way, as one commenter said over on politics.ie, incentivising those who could voluntarily produce a clean result might be a better approach. I certainly don’t see any benefit to going after schoolkids who are taking drugs - it will surely only lead to further alienation, resentment and truancy to avoid testing. Simon over on Irishelection.com makes a few good points on his post about it.

To quote a another commenter on Politics.ie:

40 years of criminalisation, hectoring, screeching, actual real wars, locking people up, cant, hypocrisy, and creating a powerful wealthy and violent criminal empire - while all the while drugs become cheaper, more available and more widely used - and what is your answer? We have to “accelerate” our right-wing codology and start criminalising our children. FFS. Catch a grip.

I’m sure nobody who knows me will be surprised to hear I would be against drug testing schoolchildren, but I also just finished reading the Corner - a book which highlights the failure of Americas ‘War on Drugs’. Let’s not make all the same mistakes over and over.

Is this just designed as an easy way to get concerned conservative parents emotionally invested in Kenny for the elections…?

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