- [first lines]
- Steve: ...You're sitting on your hands! Nothing is being done, nothing at all! There's a war going on out there. We had a kid from this district die last week from an overdose!
- Jane Horowitz (school board): You make it sound like the school board doesn't see a drug problem. We do. Things aren't going to change until and unless the buyers - our kids - stop buying drugs. That's why we have a drug education program.
- Steve: Drug education isn't good enough, because it sacrifices today's kids for tomorrow's! Our position is very simple: Use drugs, and you're out. Period!
- Jane Horowitz (school board): Are you asking us to test, at random, all our students for drug use?
- Frank Harlan (school board): What should we do about the kids who test positive? How do you propose to help them?
- Mrs. Rupert: Our first priority should be the kids who are clean and struggling to make it. You help them by weeding out the kids who take drugs and/or pressure others to do the same.
- Coach Stanley Daniels: It takes guts to stay clean when all your friends aren't. A school-wide drug test could give non-users just the excuse they need to say no and mean it.
- Mrs. Rupert: While you talk, who's going to save these kids who are being offered drugs from every which way but up?
- School Board #3: The best way to help them is for parents and teachers to learn the signs of drug use and THEN call for a test, if and when they've noticed something suspicious. There are rights issues we have to consider, after all.
- Mrs. Rupert: What rights are violated if lives are saved?
- School Board #3: That's just it: violating legal rights can just as easily destroy lives as save them.
- Jane Horowitz (school board): Steve, how much will these tests cost, and how accurate are they? And how reputable is the lab you're proposing we use?
- School Board #3: Also, if somebody tests positive, who all has access to that information?
- Jane Horowitz (school board): Since there aren't any national regulations yet, let's examine - thoroughly - the new testing program over at the Whitney school district, before acting here.
- Steve: Hey... When your tail's on fire, you don't talk about it! You sit on it, hard! Come on, let's put a drug-testing program in place TONIGHT... before another of our kids dies!
- Coach Stanley Daniels: ...Carla? Honey, what is it?
- Carla Daniels: Jay Watts is dead. He overdosed this afternoon. Your drug test couldn't save him.
- Coach Stanley Daniels: They just didn't get to him in time.
- Carla Daniels: They didn't try, Dad; worse, they didn't *care*! If they were serious about helping people like Jay, they'd focus on kids who showed signs of being in trouble.
- Coach Stanley Daniels: Wait a minute. If you know he was in trouble, why didn't you tell anyone?
- Carla Daniels: Why, so you could expose him and then shove him away?
- Coach Stanley Daniels: No, so we could try and help him!
- Carla Daniels: Like you helped Will? Tell me how using a lottery as a drug test helps anybody. Tell me why the people who should have been involved were never even *contacted* until after Jay died!
- Coach Stanley Daniels: ...Carla's been suspended, indefinitely, until and unless she tests clean... either that, or completes a treatment program at the drug-rehab center. I really wish she'd be sensible about this.
- Sally: She's got principles. You should be proud of her!
- Coach Stanley Daniels: What, for getting herself tossed out of school? For sacrificing her education, and risking her whole future?
- [CUTTING-ROOM FLOOR-LINE]
- Coach Stanley Daniels: If I pulled a stunt like that, at her age, my dad and mom would have disowned me in a second!
- Linda: [CUTTING-ROOM FLOOR-LINE] I never knew you had such a tragic childhood.
- Coach Stanley Daniels: [CUTTING-ROOM FLOOR-LINE] Hey, that's how I was brought up. And I thanked my parents for it!
- Linda: [CUTTING-ROOM FLOOR-LINE] Which makes it all the more tragic.
- Sally: So what would you do in her position?
- Coach Stanley Daniels: Well, I have nothing to hide.
- Sally: Does Carla?
- Coach Stanley Daniels: It's a question of whether she *should*, not whether she *does*.
- Sally: Stan, have you tested any of your employees?
- Coach Stanley Daniels: No, I haven't; that's a moot issue, Sally. And even if I did have the resources to organize a drug test, my employees are good people; none of them's given me any reason to think otherwise.
- Sally: Did Carla or Will give a reason?
- Coach Stanley Daniels: That's another moot issue. Anyhow, replacing my people would be more trouble than it was worth.
- Linda: Will did not take amphetamines before that test; he took medication for a cold. It showed traces just like amphetamines.
- Coach Stanley Daniels: I've never heard of anything like that before.
- Linda: Both Will's lawyer and the State University said...
- Coach Stanley Daniels: You hired a *lawyer*?
- Sally: He's an old friend of mine.
- Linda: Stan, Will's entire future is at stake. His attorney believes he's innocent. I'm sorry you don't!
- Sally: [CUTTING-ROOM FLOOR-LINE] Stan. Suppose Carla's school gave her a pregnancy test and *it* came back positive. Would that go without saying to boot?
- [This clearly strikes a nerve]
- Coach Stanley Daniels: [CUTTING-ROOM FLOOR-LINE, with barely-controlled outrage] ... Frankly, I'm not sure if me and Carla could look each other in the eye ever again, after such a thing.
- Linda: [CUTTING-ROOM FLOOR-LINE, crushingly soft] That's what I was afraid you'd say.
- Emanuel Jensen: ...When it comes to drug-testing, I think like a hunter. Whenever I come across a herd of big game, I don't fire into it with just anything; I pick a gun with decent sighting, so that I can target a particular animal. I've always felt people who target kids with drug problems should do the same: rely on what they see for themselves, such as personality changes, or other serious alterations in a particular kid's behavior. Without that to go on, drug testing is like firing blindly into a herd and hoping you'll hit something.