What about chip implants? You for those too? You know, just to keep track of the little darlings in case something where to happen.
Tyrants would love you to death.
Posted on 10/31/2002 4:57:12 AM PST by Wolfie
Dole Links License To Drug Test
Elizabeth Dole wants to require all teenagers to pass a drug test before getting a driver's license. Dole, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate and a former transportation secretary, has promised to push for a federal law pressuring states to enforce such a measure. "Wouldn't that help them understand how important it is to be drug free?" Dole asked at a recent campaign stop in Washington, N.C. "It's not cool (to abuse drugs). It kills."
Then-President Bill Clinton proposed a nearly identical measure in 1996 while campaigning against Dole's husband, former Sen. Bob Dole, and offered federal grants to states the following year. Campaign officials for Elizabeth Dole said they were unaware of the Clinton initiative.
Dole included the pre-license drug test as part of her "Dole Plan for North Carolina" this year, proposing that teens who test positive must complete a drug counseling course and pass a subsequent test before getting a license.
The test could be bypassed. Parents who don't want their children to take a drug test could just say no and waive the requirement, said Mary Brown Brewer, Dole's communications director.
"You can't solely address illegal drugs from the supply side. You have to address it from the demand side," Brewer said. "When you turn 16, you look so forward to getting that driver's license ... This is a pretty strong incentive not to do anything that would prevent you from getting that driver's license."
Dole has made "less government" a campaign mantra, as have many Republicans, which makes it striking that she would embrace an invasive expansion of government duties and authority. Last year, nearly 62,000 N.C. teens got their first driver's license.
A spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said he was unaware of any states enacting such a program after the Clinton push.
Dole's opponent, Democrat Erskine Bowles, said he would like to talk with law enforcement officials, parents and teenagers before proposing such a measure.
The testing presents practical obstacles and legal questions. State motor vehicles administrations would suddenly face the costs of processing drug tests through a laboratory, not to mention the idea of testing youngsters who haven't been accused of anything. U.S. courts, though, have repeatedly upheld the constitutionality of drug tests.
Several states have zero tolerance laws on alcohol use, requiring that teens lose their license if caught driving with any of alcohol in their blood. The alcohol tests, though, are administered after a youth has been stopped on suspicion of drinking.
Substance-abuse experts said drug testing works as an incentive to keep youths from abusing drugs but likely only until they pass that checkpoint.
"Drug testing has always been a false promise that it would help us somehow by threatening people and make them stop so they wouldn't get into trouble," said John P. Morgan, a physician and City University of New York medical professor who has studied drug testing for 15 years.
He said the vast majority of positive drug tests detect nothing stronger than marijuana, and occasional smokers need only stop for a couple of weeks to pass.
Carl Shantzis, executive director of Substance Abuse Prevention Services in Charlotte, said prevention policy requires follow-up.
"Once teenagers get a license," Shantzis said, "the question is what kind of other incentives are there to keep them from abusing alcohol or other drugs."
If the fact that I'm concerned about the danger to my (and others') kids posed by kids who drive while under the influence of drugs is frightening to you - than the vast, vast majority of parents must scare you a lot. It's a scary, scary world, FreeTally.....
Your 1% Libertarian elitism is showing. This will be very popular with the soocer moms and other parts of the electorate, IMO.
They would ride in the back seat and that's it
The best idea I have heard for using driving as an incentive for teens was for grades. Stay in school and maintain a passing grade and you can keep your liscense. Drop out or start failing and your liscense is suspended. There's nothing teens hate more than riding the bus.
What about chip implants? You for those too? You know, just to keep track of the little darlings in case something where to happen.
Tyrants would love you to death.
No, its your wacked out totalitarian mentality that is summed up by this.....
Government can pass any law it wants to with regard to your car. If citizens don't like it enough, they'll vote for representatives who will change those laws.
....that I find quite scary.
No, or course not. But the fact is (marijuana aside) that drug use terrifies a great many (obviously not all) parents. I've seen first hand the destruction that drugs bring to kids and to communities. I've seen the death on the roads caused by kids using drugs. I KNOW it's a serious danger to my kids - and I KNOW there are lots of evil people (right in my town and in my kids' schools) who would love for my kids to get hooked on powerful and dangerous drugs. Dole (though wrong consitutionally) is talking to the many, many parents terrified by what drugs can do to their kids.
Seatbelts, airbags, lower speed limits, third brake lights, and now drug testing. My car is my car. I don't consider it a small issue. She did plenty enough damage while she wasn't elected. FWIW I will not vote for Bowles
To save a child....
You know what they say about good intentions.
Why stop at Pit Bulls?
Dogs aren't the only potential hazard to children.
Should we start a list?
Uh, no, she's saying we're not spending enough of the government's green drug so another law that creates more expenses is required. I gather that those who've never taken anything harder than a cold remedy would still be required to be tested, an expense borne by whom? covered by whose medical insurance?
Government can pass any law it wants to with regard to your car. If citizens don't like it enough, they'll vote for representatives who will change those laws.
....that I find quite scary.
Sorry to scare you, FreeTally. The statement above is just a statement of FACT. We elect people to our Congress and state assemblies and senates and to our town councils to pass laws for society's benefit. Many of those laws pertain to cars and car safety and driving laws and driving safety. And they work pretty well on the whole. The only reason such laws are passed is because we elect people who pass them. If we don't like them, we can elect people to rescind them. That's democracy in action, FreeTally - not totalitarianism. If the majority in my state sees fit to elect reps who pass laws to require seatbelts, so be it. No dictatorship there!
Are you saying then that drivers have a right to drive completely stoned? And do you believe that there should be no driver's licenses at all?
What about chip implants? You for those too? You know, just to keep track of the little darlings in case something where to happen. Tyrants would love you to death.
The difference (which is HUGE) is that other people's kids driving around my town on drugs endangers my kids. My kids running around town without chip implants endangers no one.
You were the one who was making, IMO, an absurd claim, that she was going to lose votes. Sure she is going to lose votes from the 1% Libertarian crowd, but that will be more than made up with the votes from the mushy middle, who like it or not are concerned about teen drug abuse.
Now of course instead of knee jerkingly calling Liddy Dole names, you could write an e-mail stating where she is setting a bad precedent and that it is a state matter.
But IMO, you would rather call her names because you do not agree with her that drug abuse is a problem at all.
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