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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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Drug Tests Can Go Too Far Don Barnard Letters, East Anglian Daily Times Tuesday 11 Jan 2000 I agree with Mr Harty (Letters, December 17) that anyone who drives knowing that a substance whether legal or illicit - is affecting their driving ability is highly irresponsible, and if caught should be prosecuted. However, I also feel it's important that any road safety programme of drug driving enforcement should be just that, and not a way of propping up the Misuse of Drugs Act. That said, there are numerous problems with testing, body fluids for drug use or impairment through drug use. The greatest shortcoming 0f these tests is their inability to determine drug use or impairment at the time the test was taken. Cannabis for example will test positive weeks after a single use, many over the counter and prescription medicine test positive for opiates and amphetamines. And chemical tests standing alone are not precise enough to supply the formal proof needed for prosecutions; I am not attacking the police. I acknowledge they have a difficult job to do. But I do find it remarkable in today's political climate where every statement made by politicians is scrutinised. That when it comes to drugs there is little public reaction, no questioning of central government's adoption of Joseph Goebbels' philosophy ("It is the absolute right of the state to supervise the formation of public opinion.") and the Stasi-type police state evolving as a result of the establishment tinkering with the drug laws. Hypothetically of course, would Mr Harty or anyone else support the expansion of these tests to include: pre-employment and 'random drug testing' at work for all professions or even measures similar to that used in Sweden, where people - on the whim of police officers - are regularly pulled off the street, out of clubs and bars, interrogated and forcibly tested for illicit drug use. This practice was recent praised by the US drug tsar Barry McCaffery, and we all Know how Tony Blair and his inner sanctum like to take advice from the U.S. on drug issues. The fact is, testing for recent illicit drug use is an unnecessarly expensive operation and a creeping invasion into private life! Don Barnard Braintree, Essex
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