DRUG TESTS TOO HIGH A PRICE FOR LOSS OF FREEDOM

Sorry, but random drug testing is not "a small price to pay" (Letters, May 9.)

Often, in our quest to curb crime, we find that we confront a rather
significant stumbling block: the Constitution of the United States.
With regularity, citizens and politicians attempt to skirt it in
order to address what seems to be a pressing need. In this case, the
actions of a small handful of Hawai'i teachers have somehow been
interpreted as a crisis of such urgency that the basic privacy rights
of all teachers need to be sacrificed.

When we violate our basic constitutional principles to crack down on
one segment of our society, we diminish ourselves as a nation, and we
all lose some of our freedom. Our justice system is based on the idea
that most people are innocent, and should not be presumed guilty.
When we trample the privacy of all members of a group to ferret out a
small number of "guilty" parties, we are behaving like a police state.

Random drug testing does not prove that a teacher is a danger to
students during school hours. It does not prove that a teacher is
incompetent. It does not prove that the teacher is a drug addict who
needs help.

In fact, with the likelihood of false positives, it appears that
random drug testing does not prove anything at all, except that we
are willing to sacrifice our most precious liberties at the drop of a hat.

Katy Rose

Hanalei