TESTS ARE A GOOD HEALTH POLICY

Your opposition to random student drug testing (RSDT) seems based
upon an unrealistic understanding of what the program is and how it
works. Your scenario of the failed druggie football player is totally
wrong. In typical RSDT schools, the positive test would only result
in a confidential conference between the student, his parents and a
school drug counselor for discussion of a plan to protect the student
from the health hazards of intoxicating and additive substances.

In many RSDT programs he would not even be suspended from the team on
a first positive. In results reported from the thousands of schools
throughout the U.S. using RSDT, they typically report finding less
than 1 percent positives and few to no second positives. Because RSDT
is essentially a school health screening for drugs to protect kids
from going on to become one of the 3,000 people currently dying of
overdose each month, I agree with you that it should apply to all
kids, not just athletes and drivers.

DeForest Rathbone

Great Falls, Va.