SLOW THE DRUG-TEST FRENZY

THE FOURTH AMENDMENT is designed to protect Americans against unreasonable
searches.

Such as random drug testing.

In recent years, that constitutional protection has been chipped away in
the name of the ``war on drugs.'' Opponents of various drug testing schemes
were castigated as having something to hide, or possessing too little
regard for public safety.

Fortunately, that trend appears to be slowing. The courts are moving back
to the principle embraced by the founding fathers, which is that
authorities should not be able to search an individual's possessions
without cause. And nothing is more personal, more innately inviolable, than
an individual's own body.

The latest ruling came this week from the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld
an appellate court's opinion that an Anderson, Ind., school went too far by
requiring drug testing of all students who violated certain disciplinary
rules, such as fighting.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago had declared that drug testing can be
ordered only when school officials had a specific reason to believe that a
student was under the influence of drugs.

While letting this sensible ruling stand, the Supreme Court ducked the
opportunity to establish a clearer precedent on drug testing, thus leaving
the issue in murky legal territory. For example, the court just four years
ago gave the green light to mandatory drug testing of school athletes.

Drug-testing plans continue to crop up as simplistic political panaceas for
society's ills. Governor Gray Davis, in campaigning last fall, had even
raised the possibility of mandatory drug testing in high schools. However,
that idea appears to have been shelved; it was not part of his education
reform package that moved through the Legislature this week.

The latest ruling will still allow schools to act when they suspect a
student of abusing drugs. But the rest of the students should be accorded a
presumption of innocence -- as the court rightly asserted.