DRUG TESTING MISGUIDED

I admire Ginelle Weber, her parents and the American Civil Liberties
Union for standing up to the drug-testing policy at Oakridge High
School (Register-Guard, Nov. 1).

Even though the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that deterring drug use by our
nation's schoolchildren justifies such drug-testing programs, I believe
that such programs are shameful and disgraceful. This is the lesson being
taught at Oakridge High: Even if you're innocent, you'll be kicked off the
volleyball team if you don't pee in a cup when we say so. Punished until
proven innocent! In America! Unbelievable!

How proud Dr. Linn Goldberg and his fellow "scientists" at the Oregon
Health Sciences University must be knowing that an innocent girl has
been kicked off the volleyball team because of their
self-contradictory research. (Goldberg, who must hold a doctorate in
doublethink, insists that he's not a drug-testing advocate.) The
"scientific" results of this $3.6 million study will never be worth
even one of Weber's tears - even if the study does prove that random
drug testing is a useless practice. Student athlete drug testing may
be legal, but it is certainly not ethical. No one has the right to
humiliate another person, and being forced to chose between leaving a
sports team and peeing in a cup is humiliating.

It's a sad day in America when a 15-year-old has to teach her
teachers, members of the school board and university scientists basic
human decency.

If the Oakridge drug-testing policy withstands the ACLU lawsuit, then
every police officer, teacher and judge should be subject to the same
policy.

Thomas Gushurst

Eugene