Before the Homecoming dance, the San Luis Obispo High School administration made an announcement on Tiger News Network and Student Congress that they would be randomly breathalyzing students at the doors of the new gym. The desired effect was to give students a heads-up or a chance to make the right decision rather than trying to catch them and get people in trouble.
The result? Of the 620 people who went, Associated Student Body adviser Jim Johnson said, “Zero people got busted for drinking.”
However, I think that breathalyzing only encouraged the use of harder drugs for the kids who were going to do illicit activities beforehand anyways. The breathalyzing announcement persuaded students who were toying with the idea of drinking before the dance to not do it. In reality though, the kids who want to get faded before the dance are going to get faded.
Students either tried to guess who was going to get breathalyzed (the admin counted 8 people aloud in front of me and chose the eighth person) or simply snuck alcohol into the dance. If students didn’t want to go through all of that trouble, they popped pills, got high off of weed, or did some other drug that the administration can’t test.
One can argue how the fact of no one getting caught is a victory, but many students still got wasted and went to the dance.
I don’t want to condemn the use of breathalyzing at school dances; other schools do it and SLOHS needs to promote sobriety and safe driving. I just think that it instead encouraged the use of other drugs that could be even more dangerous than alcohol.
Bess Nicolds • Dec 27, 2015 at 11:12 pm
Lolz. Good attempt at being anonymous RANDOM COOL KID
Spooky Anonymous Person • Oct 15, 2015 at 1:28 pm
I think they functioned well enough as a deterrent. People who would have brought alcohol otherwise didn’t because they were afraid of getting caught.
Eric Osmond • Oct 15, 2015 at 8:40 am
Guess they need to step up their security if students still got in with alcohol.
Anonymous Aaron • Oct 15, 2015 at 6:14 am
I completely agree with your opinion. I also believe random brethlyzing to be a violation of our rights. Many people have a great fear of authority figures – especially the police, and subjecting them to tests when they have done nothing wrong is an abuse.
Eric Osmond • Oct 16, 2015 at 9:02 am
The students were drinking, that’s what they did wrong. It makes no sense why students are up in arms about this. If someone wasn’t drinking, then they have nothing to hide and shouldn’t have a problem with being breathalyzed.
RANDOM COOL KID • Dec 27, 2015 at 11:06 pm
It’s a violation of rights. From what we know, the officers had no reason to test the specific students that they did. If they had smelled the alcohol on the students’ breath before asking them to be tested or even seen behavior that suggested prior drinking, there wouldn’t be a problem. But counting off randomized students is not a warrant for investigation. Due to the exclusionary rule, if the officers had found someone who’d been drinking by only counting them off, they would not have legally been able to use that evidence against them. #thanksapgov I think it’s good that they had breathalyzers and it’s a sincere try at keeping students safe before driving off drunk. But the execution of that act was botched. Also, why am on this website rn?
Oooo.. and even though it sounds ridiculous to say that breathing into a tube is a violation of the fundamental rights of citizens, it’s still a right. The moment you cut slack is the moment slack is taken advantage of.