WE CAN'T GO ON WITH SUSPICIOUS MINDS

In a Dec. 8 editorial, you ask: "Primarily, are there specific legal
standards required to enact a school drug testing policy? Should this
decision be best left to school officials rather than a judge to determine?"

Opponents of such tests argue that the Fourth Amendment clearly forbids
such searches if there is no probable cause.

Authoritarians are prone to define "probable cause" for their own
convenience; thus the answer to the second question is certainly one for
the courts to determine.

Nothing in the law stops individual parents from testing their own child,
although many would argue that they would be most unwise to do so on a
random basis.

Nothing in the law stops the school or other appropriate organs of the
state from acting when the actions of an individual provide probable cause.

Proponents should bear in mind that tests are by no means infallible and
that the damage done to the innocent by a false positive may easily
outweigh any good done. They should also be aware that testing for
marijuana, which is the easiest drug to detect, does not test impairment
and can drive users to other, more dangerous drugs whose traces disappear
far more quickly.

This is part of the rationale for why the Institute of Medicine, to whose
experts taxpayers recently paid a million dollars, reported that marijuana
itself is not a "gateway" that causes the use of other drugs but that
making marijuana illegal does provide a gateway.

In essence, to test a group is to damage the innocent in order for the
state to try to save a few individuals from irresponsible choices.

Where the user does actual harm to others, probable cause will be evident.

School time and money are better spent on teaching the Constitution,
positive drug prevention such as after school programs, and professional
counselors who can detect and help those who have taken a wrong turn.

Suspicionless searches are the hallmark of police states, not democracies.

Jerry Epstein,
President Drug Policy Forum of Texas

Houston