REEFER MADNESS

A few weeks ago, the National Basketball Association congratulated itself
on discovering that only 2.8 percent of its players - twelve of 430 - had
tested positive this season for marijuana use. Since previous grapevine
estimates had run to 60-70 percent, the revised totals (officially
confidential, but leaked to the New York Times) seemed cause for
celebration - at least until somebody pointed out that all the players had
been warned of the scheduled tests in advance. That led to an obvious and
embarrassing question: Did those twelve guys get the memo, or were they too
high to read it?

But the high profile, sports drug headlines also obscure a more fundamental
question - when did employers acquire some absolute authority to force
their employees to piss in a bottle? Employers began by targeting "public
safety" positions - airline pilots, long distance truckers - but
increasingly, the national anti-drug hysteria has conspired to make the
boss-controlled urine-testing seem normal: "You Want a job? Give us a
sample."

So there should be little surprise that in Texas, the reefer madness has
taken another, more absurdly sinister step. The school board of Lockney, a
small town forty miles northeast of Lubbock, strongly encouraged by
superintendent Raymond Lusk, has decreed that every student from the sixth
to the twelfth grade be regularly tested for the bodily presence of drugs.
Lusk, speaking in the circular logic beloved of authoritarians, told the
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, "It's a long story, but society has just brought
us to this point. We do a lot of things [now] that at one time we would
say was not the school's job to do. Schools have kind of become all things
and our job description has expanded." Lusk apparently considers his
current job titles to include cop, judge, jury, and executioner. He claims
the new policy is primarily intended to help students resist "peer
pressure" to use drugs. Under the new policy, students who test positive
will be suspended from extracurricular activities for twenty-one days,
serve three days of in-school suspension, and be required to attend three
sessions of drug counseling. Faculty members testing positive will be
fired immediately.

And in a particularly bullying flourish, any child who refuses to be tested
- - even with the support of his or her parents - will be considered to have
failed the test and be subject to the same sanctions. That became an issue
when local rancher Larry Tannahill, father of twelve-year-old sixth-grader
Brady, informed the district that he would not sign the waiver allowing
Brady to be tested for drugs. "What scares me the most, if I do not sign
it," said Tannahill, "they are going to punish my child for what I do, and
I definitely do not think that's right." Calling the new policy
unconstitutional, Tannahill has threatened to sue the school district in
federal court if the policy is not repealed.

In a conversation with Left Field, Tannahill said that while other
townspeople have privately supported his family's stand, thus far none have
stepped forward publicly. "Of course my family has stuck with us," he
said. "I've got some support, but there's not a whole lot steppin' out and
saying much. But they're having a hard time trying to, because they're
trying to hang on to their jobs, and the people that come and do business
with them. And of course they're protecting their children."

Tannahill added that on the other hand, no one in town has harassed him or
his children (he also has an eleven year old child not yet subject to the
new policy) for refusing to cooperate. "We have had teachers who have come
up secretly to them," he said, "and told them they admired what we're
doing. Kinda stuff like that, and I get people who come up around town and
talk to me about it. Lot of them, either that or they call, but they don't
want to get completely involved in the situation yet - I think they're all
just waiting to see what will happen."

Asked if it was initially his son's idea to refuse the test, Tannahill
paused. "Well, sorta kinda. It was kind of a mutual understanding. He knew
I wasn't going to like it whenever he heard about it at school. I have
talked to him about it, before we kinda carried on much further, and he
thought we were doing the right thing."

Young Brady was even more West-Texas loconic than his father. "I don't
think it's right," he said, "because they say we have to do it." Had any of
his friends been supportive? "There was a kid on the bus that said,
'That's good that you're standing up for your rights.'" Was anybody
criticizing him? "Hunh-uh."

Tannahill says there's still a chance that the school board, some of whose
members have expressed doubts, might reverse itself (another meeting on the
policy is scheduled for March 23). But he's not optimistic. "We've got
some that have kind of wavered, thinking now, 'Wait a minute, what'd we
do?' But I really feel like it's probably going to go to the federal court
to start with. They may change their mind - but I'm gonna tell you, I won't."

Although the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed mandatory school drug-testing
for hazardous sports like football, Dallas lawyer Michael Lenz (who is
representing Tannahill on behalf of the Texas A.C.L.U.) calls the prospects
on this case "excellent." "The Supreme Court has carved out an exception
for athletics as a 'reasonable' limitation on student rights," Lenz said,
"but the constitution clearly prohibits unreasonable [searches]. In
Brady's case, he and his family are refusing a blanket requirement for
which there is no reasonable justification,"

Readers who wish to support the Tannahills can send contributions or write
to the A.C.L.U. of Texas, P.O. Box 3629, Austin, Texas 78764