'BIG TOBACCO' SMALL POTATOES COMPARED TO DRUGS

Like most entrepreneurs who think they've found the latest money-
making bonanza, Bryan David Scott attempts to defend the indefensible
in his Dec. 8 letter, "Tulia school officials pass the test."

He asks a number of questions but answers none. Mr. Scott asks, "Have
you ever stood near the casket of a young person who died from alcohol
poisoning or a drug overdose?" Has Mr. Scott? Or is this just a little
more false hysteria, the bread and butter of the drug-testing industry?

Since many Americans face the possible disastrous consequences of this
"voodoo science" called drug testing every day, they make it their
business to stay informed.

No medical test known to man is 100 percent accurate. None. Why do you
think most doctors refuse these drug tests, categorically? We base
employment decisions, people's futures and careers, and educational
opportunities, to name a few, on a test that common sense tells us is
not and cannot be totally reliable.

There are so many problems involving drug testing that your paper
cannot begin to hold them all, whether it is legal substances and food
products that cause false positives, lab errors, adulteration or the
concocted numbers. The nation's news media fail to report it. Why?

Probably the same reason we have drug testing in the first place --
money and plenty of it.

If you think the tobacco settlement is "big money," wait till the
lid's blown off the drug-testing industry. The liabilities pale in
comparison.

Mike Plylar

Kremmling, Colo.