MORONIC POLICIES

Anne Marie McCormack

Brookfield -- Letter writers James Gierach's "Parents who oppose drug test
have few options" and Brian Bennett's "Drug testing" (Voice of the people,
July 10) illustrate two of the (myriad) reasons I am so glad I don't have
children: I'd have to expose them to and, perhaps more difficult, try to
explain the moronic policies of the adults in charge.

Supreme Court decision aside, random drug testing is a violation of student
rights.

The irony of the ruling allowing testing of those involved in
extracurricular activities, of course, is that high school drug abusers
tend not to participate. Those teens who are both experimenting with
illicit materials and considering joining marching band or the school
newspaper now will opt not to join anything in order to avoid the risk of
drug tests. Thus, instead of spending their after-school hours under the
guidance of an adult and in the company of the fellow students least likely
to be drug users, they will choose to continue to hang out with their
also-uninvolved friends.

Baby Boomers are probably the Americans who used drugs more than any other
generation of teenagers. I find it amazing that now that they are running
the schools, they are so intolerant of what they did so enthusiastically
themselves. Today's teens have more reason not to trust anyone over 30 than
did the youth originally so vocal in that belief.
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Drug Treatment

Anne F. Gauthier

Evanston -- About drug testing in the schools, I think it will be doing our
youth a favor. I work in a treatment center for alcoholism and other drug
dependency--Hazelden Chicago. Most of our patients are in mid-life, but
when a person in the late teens or early 20s comes into treatment, the
older patients invariably say, "I wish I had gotten help when I was your
age so I could have started a better life sooner."

Drug testing can help identify the approximately 10 percent of youth who
are biologically vulnerable to drug dependency and encourage them to get
treatment.