AUBURN BUSHED-WHACKS ITSELF

America my be suffering a terrific loss to the war on drugs, but don't
tell that to President George Bush. Our marriage-saving, war-starting,
traveling-space-at-the-speed-of-light president decided he needed
extra moral high ground for his re-election campaign.

The former snow-globe announced at his State of the Union address last
Tuesday that he would give more money to public schools; not for
teachers, or books, or classrooms, or computers, or all the children
he's left behind, but for drug testing.

Fortunately for Auburn's children, the city doesn't need a
presidential mandate to force its will upon others.

Auburn City Schools Superintendent Terry Jenkins has already proposed
a drug-testing policy to the Board of Education Jan. 13.

As written, it requires all students who participate in
extracurricular activities or park on campus to submit to supervised
drug and alcohol tests.

If they don't, they get booted from the chess team.

Jenkins assembled a "task force" composed of teachers, parents and
students to help create the policy.

His task force cares about the children, and wants to give them more
reasons to say no. For example, peeing in a cup in front of the principal.

I would never advocate the use of drugs or alcohol among teens, but I
will disagree with mandatory drug tests in state-run schools.

School-age kids are still citizens; they have as much a right to
privacy as Terry Jenkins.

They're required to attend school, but that doesn't mean they shed
their constitutional rights in the parking lot.

If Bush and friends were really interested in curbing teenage
drug-use, they would legalize drugs.

Let the free market take over and place an age restriction. I'm almost
22, and I still can't buy cigarettes without my ID.

If a drug seller can open up shop and supply to Average Joe America,
he won't bother going to playgrounds to tempt the kiddies.

The market for drugs is always going to exist. I think the government
should take advantage of it.

Think of all the money the state could raise with sin taxes and all
the money kept out of bad guys' bank accounts.

Besides, if an athlete gets suspended from the team for drinking or
getting high, wouldn't that just give him or her more time to get high?

American teenagers are notorious for rebellion, and forcing them to
take tests might just turn them on to what you're trying to prevent.

The money's better spent elsewhere,

And maybe, if the state stopped trying to rear students, their folks
would pick up the slack.

After all, aren't parents the anti-drug?