TESTING STOMPS ON CIVIL RIGHTS

I don't know what Dr. Linn Goldberg is a doctor of, but it certainly isn't
constitutional law ("Student drug-test study will provide invaluable data"
Aug. 8).

Using high school students as guinea pigs for collecting what Goldberg
describes as "invaluable data" while stomping on their civil rights by
coercing drug testing sends the worst possible message to the future
leaders of our nation.

In our insane attempts to "protect the children" from drug use, we are
moving ever closer to compromising our most precious assets of freedom and
liberty. And none of these multi-billion-dollar attempts to preclude drug
use have exhibited even a modicum of success in the decades we have been
waging this failed drug war.

In fact, I would suggest that it is the war on drugs itself that is largely
responsible for the rampant use and availability of illicit drugs in Oregon
and throughout the nation. Prohibition has never been effectively
implemented. It only leads to an inevitable black market and the antithesis
of regulation and control.

MARK GREER Executive director, DrugSense (MAP Inc.) Porterville,Calif.