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."
That still doesn't negate the fact that Ronald Reagan was the person who gave her start.
This is good old fashioned politics, IMHO. She is throwing something that Erskine Bowles employer Clinton proposed back in his face.
Drug abuse is a major concern and this adrresses it. You may not like the solution, but it is politically popular.
Anyway I consider this a minor thing and being used to gin up the pro-drug Libertarians on FR.
Well, that's an incredibly stupid response. The fact is, my kids are endangered in my town by: 1) drunk drivers (five people killed in my town last year from drunk drivers) 2) drivers on drugs (two people killed in my town last year from drivers on drugs) 3) sexual molestors (including in my Church and in my kids' Church schools) (two homosexual men in my Church and Church school caught for molesting teenage boys - and one boy killed by a molestor at the town carnival by suffocation after being anally raped), 4) people who would encourage my kids to do drugs, (happens all the time at parties in my town and in the schools) 5) people who would encourage my kids to do bad things (a constant difficulty in today's society) 6) violent bullies (two kids attacked in my kids' school), etc. etc. etc. Of course, my kids have to live in and deal with society, and it's mine and my wife's job to help them with that, and to protect them. Anything that helps with the loving and essential task I welcome. Sorry there muggs if that gets you twisted up.
I do have the option in this democracy of pointing out the lack of common sense of those who support waste. I also have the option through the right of free speech to point out how weak and whiney the "If you don't like it you can just leave" argument sounds. The Founding Fathers gave us the right of free speech in order that we may point out government stupidity and tyranny without fear of punishment.
Good luck.
Did you have a fallout shelter in your back-yard when you were a kid?
Let's be clear about something, if we may...
It is *not* a matter of being pro-drug. It is a matter of being anti-government.
It is none of the govenment's business what people do in their homes.
If they try to operate heavy equipment on an interstate highway while they're stoned, then yes. Not otherwise.
Sure you do. And the majority has the right in a democracy to vote for what it wants.
Just be careful what you wish for. When you enlist fedgov to "help" you do something, you frequently end up having them doing it all for you, on their terms.
Lovely double talk there. Your specious argument would have merit, if she didn't do her little highway fund trick and the age of 21 when she was transportation secretary in 86. I turned 18 the next year... joined the army, fought for my country and couldn't have a beer when I got back to base, because Liddy knew what was best for me.
Sorry. We must elect all republicans... because as Jeffords, Chafee, and Dole have shown... if they have an (R) behind their name, they must be good. Rah rah team.
From the second line of the article:
has promised to push for a federal law
Now, boys and girls, sing along for Illbay, who needs a little extra help and encouragement:
It's not so, not so, not so, not so tricky
To read and write and do arithmeticky....
He likes to establish his style up front.
What libertarians ALWAYS miss is that when you allow some freedoms, and a great many people hurt others by abusing those freedoms, punishment after the fact does nothing to help those injured. In our town, we used to allow people to have pit bulls, until several of those who did caused others (including a child) to be severely injured. So the honest question is: well - continue to allow pit bulls in the town, knowing that some will abuse the freedom and that some kid will be maimed or killed OR ban pit bulls. The vast, vast majority in this town opted for banning pit bulls. Why? Because the likely injury to others is far more abhorrent to them than the taken-away freedom of wanna-be pitbull owners. Governments (and citizens) make these kinds of (real world) decisions all the time.
The RepublicRat Party doesn't like people going where they want to go instead of where their betters tell them to go.
Just be careful what you wish for. When you enlist fedgov to "help" you do something, you frequently end up having them doing it all for you, on their terms.
I agree entirely with you! I am very, very wary of the federal government getting involved in people's business. As I indicated, this is far better dealt with at at state (or even town) level. But I DO believe that a kid doing drugs has no business getting a drivers license, and I don't want kids doing drugs endangering my family on the road.
You know...
You are about as conservative as Hitler was. Or Joe Stalin.
MA or MD Republican. Maybe VT or OR.
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