850 BOARD OF ED. OF INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DIST.
NO. 92 OF POTTAWATOMIE CTY. v. EARLS Ginsburg, J., dissenting
seh School's Application for Funds under the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Program, reprinted at App. 191; accord, 1996-1997 Application, reprinted at App. 186; 1995-1996 Application, reprinted at App. 180.2 As the Tenth Circuit observed, "without a demonstrated drug abuse problem among the group being tested, the efficacy of the District's solution to its perceived problem is . . . greatly diminished." 242 F. 3d, at 1277.
The School District cites Treasury Employees v. Von Raab, 489 U. S. 656, 673-674 (1989), in which this Court permitted random drug testing of customs agents absent "any perceived drug problem among Customs employees," given that "drug abuse is one of the most serious problems confronting our society today." See also Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives' Assn., 489 U. S. 602, 607, and n. 1 (1989) (upholding random drug and alcohol testing of railway employees based upon industry-wide, rather than railway-specific, evidence of drug and alcohol problems). The tests in Von Raab and Railway Labor Executives, however, were installed to avoid enormous risks to the lives and limbs of others, not dominantly in response to the health risks to users invariably present in any case of drug use. See Von Raab, 489 U. S., at 674 (drug use by customs agents involved in drug interdiction creates "extraordinary safety and national security hazards"); Railway Labor Executives, 489 U. S., at 628 (railway operators "discharge duties fraught with such risks of injury to others that even a momentary lapse of attention can have disastrous consequences"); see
2 The Court finds it sufficient that there be evidence of some drug use in Tecumseh's schools: "As we cannot articulate a threshold level of drug use that would suffice to justify a drug testing program for schoolchildren, we refuse to fashion what would in effect be a constitutional quantum of drug use necessary to show a 'drug problem.' " Ante, at 836. One need not establish a bright-line "constitutional quantum of drug use" to recognize the relevance of the superintendent's reports characterizing drug use among Tecumseh's students as "not . . . [a] major proble[m]," App. 180, 186, 191.
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