GOOD STUDENTS ARE BAD TARGETS FOR DRUG TESTS

Re "Court's Message to Students: Just Say No to the Chess Club,"
Commentary, June 28: Over two years, 243 students were tested; only three
students tested positive [in the Pottawatomie school district in Tecumseh,
Okla.]. The Office of National Drug Control Policy found that in a study
carried out by the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System it was reported
that among high school students throughout the U.S. in 1999, 26.7% reported
being current users of marijuana. Almost half (47.2%) of the high school
students surveyed reported using marijuana at least once.

The notion of testing students involved in extracurricular activities
obviously does not bring the suspected results. Drug-testing good students
does not accomplish the goals because these students are obviously not
users or, even worse, abusers. It would be much more logical to test
students who are failing classes, exhibiting bad citizenship and not
getting involved in extracurricular activities.

Zachary Brygart Ellison, Pasadena

Re "Student Drug Test Law Valid," June 28: Since drugs are "a serious
national problem" and the populace has "legitimate concerns in preventing,
deterring and detecting drug use," I propose that we implement regular
(perhaps weekly) drug testing of Supreme Court justices.

They have nothing to hide, right. American citizens have the right to know
that the court's decisions are not clouded by drug use.

Elaine Lindelef, Glendale

The expectation of privacy for an adult is already gone. The Supreme Court
has been eroding this right since the late 1980s. It began with random
drug-testing of transportation workers and moved to industry as a whole in
the 1990s and now teens must give up their rights to privacy too.
Involuntarily relinquishing your bodily fluids the first time will be
embarrassing and humiliating. It will become easier with subsequent tests.
After all, we still need to get into good schools and we still need those
paychecks.

It is much easier to manage and govern those who do not question authority.
Perhaps if our esteemed justices had to urinate into a bottle, the ruling
would have been different.

Lynn Lane, Long Beach