SCHOOL DISTRICT SHOULD NOT DRUG TEST ATHLETES

Drug testing of children should be between the child and the parent with
their own money and without intrusion by the schools or the state. Stop
asking the government to raise other people's children with my tax dollars.
>From the very first "drug test" to the present, the very nature of the
methods used for "screening" reduces these "tests" to nothing more than
"lifestyle testing." Furthermore, only certain lifestyles result in a
"failure" of these tests. It's not about public safety or employee safety,
and it is not about identifying true real-time impairment of employees
before their shift begins. It's about fear, control and oppression. My
former employer blatantly practiced "random enforcement of their random
lifestyle testing policy" depending on who you were and how important you
were to the company. I quit my management position after 10 years for that
reason alone.

Moreover, the most popular methods of testing (urine, blood and hair) do not
measure true, "real time" impairment. They only measure non-psychoactive
metabolites that can be present days or weeks after the effects of
substances have subsided. ("Soft" drugs remain "visible" longer than "hard"
drugs, prompting people to use the more damaging, addictive and deadly
substances like alcohol to avoid detection.)

Maybe the corrupt politicians and media are required to adhere to the party
line of prohibition because law enforcement, customs, the prison and
military industrial complex, the drug testing industry, the INS, the CIA,
the FBI, the DEA, the politicians themselves can't live without the budget
justification, not to mention the invisible profits, bribery, corruption and
forfeiture benefits that prohibition affords them. The drug war also
promotes, justifies and perpetuates racist enforcement policies and is
diminishing many freedoms and liberties that are supposed to be inalienable
according to the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Myron Von Hollingsworth, Fort Worth, Texas