Pubdate: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer (WA) Copyright: 2008 Seattle Post-Intelligencer Contact: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/408 Author: Seattle Post-Intelligencer Editorial Board Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Test) RANDOM DRUG TESTING: THE TRUSTED SECRETS We suppose we shouldn't be surprised that the Bush administration would like to institute random drug testing in high schools. It already listens in on our conversations and asks our banks and businesses for our private records while doing all that it can to conceal its own e-mails and guest list from us. And now, it wants the right to draw bodily fluids from teens, at random. Of course we trust the government when it says that the results would be kept confidential, and that a positive test wouldn't result in punitive measures. Indeed, why stop there? Why not institute random neighborhood drug tests? Because it would be terrifying and wrong. Testing someone for drugs is an invasive thing, and with few exceptions (a person who is involved in some other trouble or has signed on to be tested as a condition of employment) no one should be subjected to random drug tests, least of all teens. Parents and legal guardians, not the feds, ought to be the ones who decide if their children ought to submit to such intrusions, period. - --- MAP posted-by: Steve Heath