America, land of the not-quite-as-free-as-England

Students for Sensible Drug Policy have put out this release:

Lawyers for the United Kingdom’s Department for Education
and Skills have warned Prime Minister Tony Blair that students who are
forced to take drug tests without consent as part of his anti-drug
initiative could sue for compensation under the ‘right to privacy’ in the
Human Rights Act.

The announcement comes less than one week after the U.S. House of
Representatives approved $10 million to fund the Bush administration’s
random student drug testing grants program, despite the largest-ever study
conducted on the topic showing no positive effect from the practice.

“As young Americans living in the ‘land of the free,’ we’re outraged that
students across the Atlantic have more rights than we do,” said Scarlett
Swerdlow, executive director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy. “Drug
testing is an unnecessary invasion of students’ privacy, especially since
it just doesn’t work.”

Go Scarlett!