Pubdate: Thu, 08 Aug 2002 Source: Huntsville Times (AL) Copyright: 2002 The Huntsville Times Contact: http://www.htimes.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/730 THE UNUSUAL SUSPECTS A Policy Requiring Teachers to Report What Medicines They Take Is Invasive and Impractical Worries about drug use abound. Maybe that's because we realize what a pathetic failure the "war on drugs" has been, how powerless we are to do more than momentarily stanch the hemorrhage of drug availability. The only things worse than our failure to solve the drug problem are the intrusive, demoralizing, ineffective ideas we keep generating as responses. The latest - no doubt well-meaning but essentially wrong-headed - comes from the Jefferson County school system. It has adopted a policy that requires teachers who are taking medication that could impair them physically or mentally to tell their supervisors about it. What a grand-sounding proposal, but, oh, those satanic details! Teachers apparently will now have to tell supervisors about every illness they suffer and every medical relief they adopt. After all, every medicine has a side effect. Even common aspirin can cause physical problems for some. And, unfortunately, side effects vary from person to person. Supervisors will have to take crash courses in pharmacology - which, unfortunately, usually requires years of study - to have any clue about specific medication, much less drug interaction. A doctor's drug manual won't cut it. What circumstances would force a teacher to report the use of a medication? Who knows? Will teachers with illnesses they might not want to discuss - and shouldn't have to discuss, like treatable depression - have to tell supervisors? Apparently. "We expect (teachers) to perform," said Superintendent Bob Neighbors, "and if you can't, then we want to know about it." Fine. But where does providing your medical history to supervisors who can turn it against you come in? Aren't supervisors supposed to be able to discern who is teaching properly and who isn't without rummaging through purses and briefcases for prescription bottles? This is another of those arbitrary, high-handed and invasive searches without cause - this time with teachers expected to report their own undefined guilt. The fourth and fifth amendments to the U.S. Constitution have things to say about this. Jefferson County can surely spend its school money more productively. It can surely treat its teachers like honest citizens, not drug suspects. And it can surely figure out how to discover drug-abusing teachers without putting the innocent on trial. The freedom to be safe and secure in your person is getting hammered enough by national law enforcement leaders who aren't quite sure how to protect Americans from terrorists. Sometimes, as in Jefferson County, the threats to freedom come from ourselves. - --- MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager