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Dole Links License To Drug Test
Charlotte Observer ^ | October 30, 2002 | Mark Johnson

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."


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: bigdruggietears; copernicus2; dopeuberalles; drugtesting; hippiedoperrant; investingstocks; northcarolina; obeyorpay; oldnorthstate; rino; unhelpful
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To: Joe Driscoll
You say:A town that wants to prevent an innocent child from again being brutally maimed 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?

Hey JoeD - We already have a list. We have laws designed to protect kids from: drugs, sexual molestors, violent types, guns in schools, cigarettes, pit bulls and other dangerous animals, disease (as in vaccinations), extremely flammable toys, etc. etc. Not all these laws are perfect, but in general, a lot of kids live better lives as a result of them. Sorry that gets your goat up so much.

181 posted on 10/31/2002 8:03:14 AM PST by yendu bwam
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To: billbears
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.

While I do have a problem with seatbelt laws that deal with the person/driver, and the speed laws, which should be exclusively a states' rights issue, all of the other aspects you mention deal with the safety factor of a vehicle. How are they bad?

I know it's your car, billbears, but I can only see your side if you were singled out, which is not the case.

182 posted on 10/31/2002 8:03:52 AM PST by A2J
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To: yendu bwam
If the majority in my state sees fit to elect reps who pass laws to require seatbelts, so be it.
That doesn't fly when the laws are federal mandates.
Again, you and your "majority".
183 posted on 10/31/2002 8:04:18 AM PST by philman_36
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To: azhenfud
fud...

I was in NY state when Kennedy ran for senator from there, lived in VA and claimed Mass as his home. What a charade. The people did not care, they voted him in. What a travesty.

184 posted on 10/31/2002 8:05:21 AM PST by cynicom
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To: philman_36
Yep, that's your Democracy. Majority rules so that is the way it is. So much for rights starting with the individual eh? Well, Democracy might get more than it bargained for on this issue overall. I liked your (marijuana aside) caveat. Just which drug/drugs do you think will be targeted with these teen tests?

No, that's the democracy specified in our Constitution. You have certain guaranteed invidual rights - like free speech, right to worship as you please, etc. etc. Outside of that, yes, the majority rules. That's democracy - as Churchill said - the worst form of government except for all the others!

185 posted on 10/31/2002 8:05:23 AM PST by yendu bwam
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To: Wolfie
Not at all. You stated that driving is not a right guaranteed in the Consititution. Neither is raising your own children. I'm trying to point out that the Constitution is NOT a document that lists your rights. It lists restrictions on the Government.

Point made, although the Constitution does recognize "natural law," which obviously weighs heavily in favor of parents raising their own kids and that the government has no right to infringe upon it.

186 posted on 10/31/2002 8:06:15 AM PST by A2J
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To: yendu bwam
Dole (though wrong consitutionally) is talking to the many, many parents terrified by what drugs can do to their kids.

Yes, she is. She's using an emotional issue, and emotional rhetoric to convince people that the federal government needs to get involved in something that constitutionally, it has no business or authority doing. How do you see that from a politically conservative standpoint, and what kind of precedent does it set? How does it fit the agenda of getting the federal government under control?

187 posted on 10/31/2002 8:06:32 AM PST by tacticalogic
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To: philman_36
We are doomed. They actually think the Constitution is a finite list of our rights. Well, it was a nice dream while it lasted.
188 posted on 10/31/2002 8:06:36 AM PST by Wolfie
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To: philman_36
That doesn't fly when the laws are federal mandates. Again, you and your "majority".

Pure federal mandates, I believe, are unconstitutional (and that needs to be looked at by our Supreme Court). When the federal government gives money to a state with strings attached, I do not believe that is unconstitutional. Get your state to stop taking the money (and the strings).

189 posted on 10/31/2002 8:06:49 AM PST by yendu bwam
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To: Dane
You were the one who was making, IMO, an absurd claim, that she was going to lose votes.
I didn't say that or claim that! I said...
"It's amazing that she came out with this right before an election. You'd think she was trying to blow her chances of winning."

But IMO, you would rather call her names because you do not agree with her that drug abuse is a problem at all.
And I resent your implication! I've called her no names!
You need to retract that!

190 posted on 10/31/2002 8:07:45 AM PST by philman_36
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To: Wolfie
We are doomed. They actually think the Constitution is a finite list of our rights. Well, it was a nice dream while it lasted.

The Constitution does have a finite list of rights (otherwise, it wouldn't be only a few pages long!). We not doomed, though. It's served us pretty well over these couple of hundred years.

191 posted on 10/31/2002 8:07:54 AM PST by yendu bwam
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To: A2J
How are they bad?

Because the market, and not the government, should demand they be installed. In any market there comes a time the demand would force the manufacturers to install it. But this demand comes from the consumer and not the federal government. And yes I have disconnected them in my car. I don't want them blowing up in my face

192 posted on 10/31/2002 8:09:04 AM PST by billbears
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To: yendu bwam
The Constitution does have a finite list of rights

That would surely be news to the men who wrote it.

193 posted on 10/31/2002 8:10:49 AM PST by Wolfie
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To: tacticalogic
Dole (though wrong consitutionally) is talking to the many, many parents terrified by what drugs can do to their kids.

Yes, she is. She's using an emotional issue, and emotional rhetoric to convince people that the federal government needs to get involved in something that constitutionally, it has no business or authority doing. How do you see that from a politically conservative standpoint, and what kind of precedent does it set? How does it fit the agenda of getting the federal government under control?

It should be emotional. Thousands of kidss lives a ruined every week in this country by drugs. It's damned emotional with me. Drugs are sold in my kids' schools, and they are enticed periodically to try them. - And again, on the constitutionality, when the federal government gives money to states, it may attach strings. I don't like that. I don't like getting at states that way. My state is weak, weak, weak in accepting such. The way to battle it is to get your state reps to stop doing so.

194 posted on 10/31/2002 8:11:05 AM PST by yendu bwam
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To: Wolfie
The Constitution does have a finite list of rights

That would surely be news to the men who wrote it.

No it wouldn't. The framers listed what they believed were the essential rights to guarantee people's essential freedoms. They did well.

195 posted on 10/31/2002 8:12:24 AM PST by yendu bwam
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To: yendu bwam
Alright, find me the one that says you have the right raise your own children.
196 posted on 10/31/2002 8:13:26 AM PST by Wolfie
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To: philman_36
And I resent your implication! I've called her no names! You need to retract that!

Excuse me, you may have not called her names but the side you sympathize with has.

Okey dokey everything fine now?

I actually agree with Liddy Dole in principle except about the Federal part, but she is a lot less scary to me than your side, which basically states that drug abuse in the US is not a problem.

197 posted on 10/31/2002 8:13:34 AM PST by Dane
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To: cynicom
Well, I guess you could take comfort in knowing you had someone who's "been around". We get the option of time warp to the past - it's deciding on which past decade to return to that muddies the water. The ONLY hope I hold in Dole is, as a Republican, she can possibly be tugged on like a fish on a string easier than the loose one in the pond....
198 posted on 10/31/2002 8:15:11 AM PST by azhenfud
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To: Wolfie
Alright, find me the one that says you have the right raise your own children.

You say the rights are infinite. I say they're not. Find me the one that says you have the right to murder someone. You can't. Therefore the rights are not infinite.

199 posted on 10/31/2002 8:15:18 AM PST by yendu bwam
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To: Dane
Excuse me, you may have not called her names but the side you sympathize with has.
I don't care about others on the side I sympathize with. You said I called her names and I didn't!
Okey dokey everything fine now?
No, it's not!
You retract it!
200 posted on 10/31/2002 8:15:47 AM PST by philman_36
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