CASE FOR DRUG TESTING IN SCHOOLS

Re: Governments urged to end ideological war on drugs, June 28

This article quoted Dr. Evan Wood as advocating treating drug use as a
public health issue rather than a law enforcement issue. We American
parents who are burying our drug-destroyed loved ones at the rate of
3,000 monthly (there are more than 38,000 drug-induced deaths yearly,
according to the Centres for Disease Control) would agree, if that
public-health approach were also applied to protecting our children
from drugs.

But advocates for treatment instead of punishment often ignore the
drug-related health crisis among children while emphasizing treatment
for drug-related criminals and hard-core addicts. Most drug-related
crime, addiction and death begin with teen drug abuse. Therefore, an
effective public health approach would be to provide school-based
health-screen drug testing for all schoolchildren to detect and treat
their exposure to drug addiction.

In several thousand U.S. schools using non-punitive random student
drug testing, drug use is nearly eliminated among the tested students.

Reducing youth drug use would eventually reduce the number of
drug-related criminals and addicts needing treatment, but legalizing
drugs would increase youth drug use.

Deforest Rathbone

Chairman, National Institute of Citizen Anti-drug Policy,

Great Falls, Va.