With heavy anticipation of the dance season at Jonathan Law comes the additional buzz about the school’s new Breathalyzer policy. Adopted in September by the Board of Education and first used at the Homecoming dance in November, the policy states that students entering a public school-sponsored dance will have to take a Breathalyzer test to confirm if they have been drinking or not. They are being used on all students, not just those who look suspicious. The policy has been adopted as an effort to cut down on teen drinking.

While there has been much hassle and complaint from the Class of 2009 about the new policy, it is fair and it is necessary.

In an interview about the policy, Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Harvey Polansky, called drinking a "teen epidemic." The interview classified school dances, the only events at which Breathalyzers will be used, as privileges to students and as something that students should work to receive.

Polansky, parents and school officials have been concerned with the increasing popularity of underage drinking. According to the Center for Disease Control, approximately 157,000 underage youth in Connecticut drink alcohol each year. Furthermore, the U.S. Department of Education reports that underage drinkers consume 16.2 percent of all alcohol sold in Connecticut.

It is not a stretch to say that some of these underage drinkers are at Jonathan Law High School, and it is because of this that the Breathalyzers, unpopular as they are among some members of the senior class, are necessary.

Rather than voice opposition to them, or find ways around them, the Class of 2009 should welcome the Breathalyzers with open arms. There is no reason to feel offended by or dislike the Breathalyzers. They are being used for students’ safety, not as another way to try to get students in trouble. Misbehavior and disrespect for the school rules in the past have proven that some Law students need to be controlled, or at least monitored, by the administration.

The Class of 2009 should be committed to proving they are responsible young adults. As seniors in high school, college is not far off, nor is fending for themselves in the "real world." Just months before their "release" into the rest of their lives, the seniors should show the faculty and staff that they are ready for what is to come and mature enough to respect the rules that have put in place for them.

A simple test using Breathalyzers will show that the Class of 2009 is not only ready, willing and able to do what they are told and mature enough to know that it is right, but also esteemed enough to set an example for those that come after them.