mirror of
https://github.com/nhammer514/textfiles-politics.git
synced 2024-12-30 09:46:18 -05:00
78 lines
4.0 KiB
Plaintext
78 lines
4.0 KiB
Plaintext
From andrey@cs.arizona.edu Tue Dec 18 22:05:08 1990
|
|
From: andrey@cs.arizona.edu (Andrey Yeatts)
|
|
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs,alt.drugs
|
|
Subject: Editorial in the Arizona Daily Star
|
|
Date: 17 Dec 90 00:01:14 GMT
|
|
|
|
Someone asked about what the jackbooter's letter that I quoted early
|
|
was in reference to. It was an excellent editorial in Tucson's Arizona
|
|
Daily Star of Nov. 28, and referred to a Gallup poll with particularly
|
|
chilling results:
|
|
|
|
Rights? What Rights?
|
|
|
|
How the Constitution lost the War on Drugs
|
|
|
|
Ask Americans what makes them so special and most will talk about liberty,
|
|
freedom and a lot Bill of Rights stuff.
|
|
Ask Arizonans to hand over one of those rights in the name of the War on
|
|
Drugs, and most will say, "sure."
|
|
A recent poll of Arizona employees found 95 percent favor some sort of
|
|
workplace drug testing. Fifty-six percent support random drug testing of all
|
|
employees, whether there was cause to suspect a problem or not.
|
|
So much for the Fourth Amendment's guarantee against unreasonable searches
|
|
and seizures. So much for the "right of the people to be secure in their
|
|
persons."
|
|
So much for common sense.
|
|
Drug testing is a simplistic non-solution. It ignores the causes of illegal
|
|
drug use. It treats a freedom-loving people like chattle. It is often
|
|
inaccurate. It is an invasion of privacy.
|
|
And it magnifies the problem all out of proportion. In 1985, say researchers
|
|
at the University of California at San Francisco, alcohol abuse accounted for
|
|
$27.4 billion in lost productivity; drug use accounted for $6 billion.
|
|
In 1989, the National Institute on Drug Abuse reported that drug abuse had
|
|
been declining for 10 years, most dramatically in the last five years. Severe
|
|
problems do exist, especialy among unemployed, disenfranchised Americans who
|
|
seek escape from their miserable lives in addiction. But these people are not
|
|
the target of the frenzy to install an Office of Drug Testing in every
|
|
workplace.
|
|
Drug abuse on the job is a problem, and, depending on the type of job, it
|
|
can be dangerous. But when a freedom-loving nation begins to mindlessly
|
|
acquiesce to an erosion of its freedoms, that's a bigger problem.
|
|
More and more private businesses are requiring drug tests. They are spurred
|
|
on by the self-serving interests of those who make money selling drug tests.
|
|
Together they, and the federal Captains of the Drug War, are whipping up the
|
|
populace: Give us your privacy and we'll solve the drug problem.
|
|
Private businesses may be within their legal rights to demand drug tests.
|
|
But should Americans be bleating approval of this invasive approach? Shouldn't
|
|
they be demanding better answers?
|
|
They should be, but they aren't. The recent Gallup poll of 500 Arizona
|
|
workers was comissioned by the Washington-based Institute for a Drug Free
|
|
Workplace. The institute, representing businesses, is conducting 12 such polls
|
|
around the nation. It won't be surprising if all show similar results. Previous
|
|
polls have indicated support nationally for random drug testing.
|
|
America says it's OK to strip away a few rights in the name of War on Drugs.
|
|
Which suggests the freedom Americans love the most may be the freedom from
|
|
thinking.
|
|
|
|
-------
|
|
Phew! and there you have it folks. We have a big job ahead of us...
|
|
|
|
andrey
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
X-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-X
|
|
Another file downloaded from: The NIRVANAnet(tm) Seven
|
|
|
|
& the Temple of the Screaming Electron Taipan Enigma 510/935-5845
|
|
Burn This Flag Zardoz 408/363-9766
|
|
realitycheck Poindexter Fortran 510/527-1662
|
|
Lies Unlimited Mick Freen 801/278-2699
|
|
The New Dork Sublime Biffnix 415/864-DORK
|
|
The Shrine Rif Raf 206/794-6674
|
|
Planet Mirth Simon Jester 510/786-6560
|
|
|
|
"Raw Data for Raw Nerves"
|
|
X-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-X
|