saliva drug testing on news radio. good debat , page-18

Hi Jdhd,

Fair comment. I personally think that alcohol is a more socially acceptable drug used by a diverse number of individuals in our society. The baby boomer parents have generally had a tough battle with parenthood particularly as their kids have entered the pre adult age period. Basically,there has always been a fine line between what is acceptable and that which is not within family groups. However drug use is far more subtle. A good example of this is the breathtest program. If a driver is well over the limit, it is fairly evident that this is the situation. Yet the same person could be driving under the influence of an opiate and not show any outward signs. Noone wants to believe that their kids are using drugs. Alcohol, well that is more socially acceptable and how often have you heard but" my old man let me have some beer when I was 12yo". Even some parents thought it a reasonable idea to introduce a socially acceptable custom to their very young offspring so when they grew older, it would not be anything special!. So what can we really expect? Dealing with binge drinking would receive an overwhelmimg support from authorities, teachers and parents alike because it is closer to a socially acceptable problem, not to mention politically more passive as compared to random drug testing that obviously carries with it the potential stigma that "our students or our children take illegal substances"/

Coupled with all the other social forces currently at play on our young, anything that threatens one's privacy or legal rights simply becomes a political mindfield. And the reason why the Mexican Schools Drug Testing Program is proceeding is because 75% of parents (who are also voters) support such initiatives. If you can believe the SA politician Anna Bressington who lost s daughter to drugs, drug testing has overwhelming support from parents of all demographics. But I suspect that more sinister forces are at work here perhaps reflected by the research commissioned recently by The National Council of Drugs that appears prima facie, to demonstrate a significant void in those areas of the report relating to cost and the efficacy of current saliva based testing devices. This void also led the research report to subsequently conclude that such a program would be too costly and the results would be well, in its words, too unreliable.

Perhaps it is enough for me to say that I am far from convinced after reading this research report and hearing the general debate but I suspect that the leaders of the drug cartels around the world supplying "only 4% of our kids with illicit drugs" would be unashamedly smiling with glee and thinking that it is business as usual! Try telling this to people like Anna Bressington who have lived the nightmare and others who have yet to live it!

Sometimes I worry about the civil libertarians and the plethora of pressure groups espousing their views on us all and in doing so, impacting our politicians who end up bowing to those that bark the loudest! Who was that fool who said silence is golden?


ciao