DROP DRUG TESTING

The plight of three Schenectady County Highway Department drivers who were unfairly labeled as drug abusers because of botched drug tests ( April 19 story ), underscores the need to abolish mandatory drug testing in the country.

In the 1950s, employers spooked by the Red Menace instituted mandatory loyalty oaths, forcing employees to forswear any ties to communism.  In the 1990s, marijuana replaced communism as the great threat to our society and urine drug testing became mandatory for many Americans.

Urine tests are body searches, and they are an unprecedented invasion of privacy.  The standard practice in administering such tests is to require employees to urinate in the presence of a witness, to guard against specimen tampering.  Today, millions of American workers every year, in both the public and private sectors, are subjected to urinalysis drug tests as a condition for getting or keeping a job.

Such tests are unnecessary, because they cannot detect current impairment and do not enhance an employer's ability to evaluate or predict job performance.  If employers in transportation and other industries are really concerned about the public's safety, they can administer computer-assisted performance tests, which have been used by NASA for years on astronauts and test pilots.  These tests can actually measure hand-eye coordination and response time, do not invade people's privacy, and can improve safety far better than drug tests can.

Forcing an individual to submit to a test to prove their innocence or their loyalty is not the practice of a free society.  It is fundamentally un-American.

WALTER F.  WOUK, Cobleskill