DRUG-TESTING DEBATE

I think it is about time to put the drug testing in schools issue to a rest!
You people who keep crying like babies about your freedoms being impinged
upon need to rethink the whole issue.

First of all, your children's public education and other school activities
are not provided because of any rights or freedoms that they have. They are
privileges that are freely given to them by our federal, state, and local
tax dollars.

You, however, do have the freedom to remove them from school, if you are
under the impression that you could successfully home-school them.

Second, no crying about this rule being one that you didn't ask them to
instate. Unless my education has failed me, this country works on the
principle of democracy. When your local voters elected your school board,
they spoke as a majority and asked, as I am sure that you did, that the
school board take measures to keep drugs out of the school and away from the
children.

This is exactly what they are doing. The school has modeled penalties for
refusal after the DPS penalties for refusing to take a breathalyzer because
you are sober. Try that one sometime and you will find yourself walking. Of
course, if you don't like how this country operates as a democracy, you do
have the freedom to leave it!

STEVEN A. CAMPBELL, Lubbock Via e-mail