DRUG TESTING AND EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

To the Editor

The question of drug testing for those engaged in extracurricular
activities is very interesting. I am against drug testing of any type. It
is an invasion of privacy in the first degree. It is a form of guilty until
proven innocent, and it is necessary to submit "fluids" to prove your
innocence.

The drug war has become a war on American citizens. America is the land of
the free yet we have more people in jail than any other country on Earth
(per capata). Many people go home and have a beer after work, they are not
alcoholics. Likewise many people rely of prozac to make it through the day,
these people are not drug addicts.

I advocate the end of the drug war. I advocate the end of hypocrisy.
Strange prohibition - it is legal to smoke tobacco, but smoking of another
type of leaf gets you thrown off of the chess team, and perhaps thrown in
jail? Seems to me that since tobacco is the number one cause of preventable
death in America we should prohibit its use with the same zeal that we
condemn marijuana. Did we put Betty Ford in jail for her substance
problems? Should she have been thrown off of the First Lady position
because she could not pass urinanalysis?

The drug war has generated a full deck of corrupt officials. Look at the
Rampart issue of California, the dishonest police officer in Texas whose
false testimony put many black citizens in jail unjustly. Newspapers are
filled with stories about police corruption, no knock warrants issued on
the wrong premise et al. The war on drugs has made America very much like
per war Germany - the DEA is the Gestapo, Drug Czar is Joseph Goebbels (in
charge of propaganda) and there is no dialog.

People who use any substance in moderation should not be punished. Schools
should spend money on education, not on enforcing hypocritical laws.

JamesBussard Fort White, Florida