From: dougm@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Victories and Losses
I heard on one of the news programs last night that Hulk Hogan has been
implicated in an alleged scheme to purchase steroids. The doctor (whose name I
don't remember) who sold it to him and other prominent professional wrestlers
has been charged.
The reporter mentioned that Hogan has been a drug propaganda warrior,
although I was not aware he had been so busy. The government and those who
have built Hogan up as an anti-drug hero must be experiencing some real tight
anal sphincter muscles just about now.
In other blows to the WOD, another Escobar brother has entered semi-
retirement at their new country estate. It's Club Med Cartel.
The government announced it had eliminated another competitor when it
allegedly busted the largest heroin shipment in U.S. history. The confiscated
material is some of that S.E. Asian stuff. Not that CIA approved Afghan
product.
When ReichFuhrerSS Martinez remarked the other day that he was winning the
WOD, I realized he wasn't lying. Indeed, from his perspective, it must be a
triumph. There are more people in jail than ever. Citizen's rights are being
increasingly curtailed, while the powers of the police grow daily. These are
the victories of the drug war.
I do not believe the WOD has significantly reduced drug use. The Dept. of
State admitted recently that while more drugs have been captured more drugs
than ever before have entered the country. Someone must be using up all these
drugs.
When you think of it, RFSS Martinez is in a difficult position. As a
multi-billion dollar industry, the drug market keeps a lot of people employed.
It keeps a lot of enforcement people employed, as well. Face it, if everyone
really did stop using just the illicite drugs, we would see, at least in the
short term, a major economic debacle that would put the S&L crisis to shame.
On the other hand, letting the market and the war continue supplies ready
tactical and strategic victories on other fronts. I'd say the American people
need at least another five to ten years of WOD before they'll be satisfied, but
another 20 might not be enough.
We'll be lucky if the U.S. doesn't resemble Kuwait at the end of it all.
=============================================================================
AMERICAN FREEDOMS AND RIGHTS
============================================
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/\ /\
/ \ / \
\ \ \ /
\ \ ||
\ /+-||---+_
\/ | |*\
| +-+
| WAR |
| ON |
| DRUGS |
| |
~~~~~~~~~~
=============================================================================
From: tbetz@panix.com (Tom Betz)
Newsgroups: misc.legal
Subject: Re: The latest in drug seizures
In <1991Jul10.034552.4743@jato.jpl.nasa.gov> eldred@rrunner.jpl.nasa.gov (Dan Eldred) writes:
>The following is taken from the LA Times, 8/9/91, in the Valley/
>Metro section:
>"Lack of Work Ends Drug Unit at Burbank Airport"
>< stuff deleted>
>" The arrest was of a man who was carrying less than an
>ounce of cocaine, officials said. The other five cases involved
>seizures--under federal civil procedures--of cash from travelers
>who could not properly account for its source. No arrests came
>from these cases."
>" The cash seizures, from $2500 to $10,000 each, were
>believed to be profits from drug transactions. If federal courts
>rule that the seizures were proper, the money will be divided
>among the agencies contributing personnel to the airport unit,
>officials said."
>< more stuff deleted>
> Maybe I missed something, but it sounds to me that the
>government is now confiscating cash from travelers at random
>without even having to prove that it was obtained illegally.
Yup, it's been going on for some time now.
All they need to do is have a dog sniff the money. If it detects
cocaine, the money may be seized. No charges need ever be
brought against you. It's common practice around the country;
two years ago, WWOR-TV in New Jersey videotaped the state
troopers stopping black people (and >only< black people) on the
NJ Turnpike, stripping their cars, and seizing their cash. One
poor woman had just come from her bank, and was on the way to put
down a down payment on her new business.
A couple years ago, the Christian Science Monitor ran a test with
a drug sniffing dog. They got a hundred-odd bills from their
bank, and the dog detected cocaine in all but three, which
happened to be brand-new, uncirculated bills.
So, you see, the law now permits your money to be seized from you
at any time on a dog's say-so.
Welcome to the New World Order.
--
Tom Betz -- 114 Woodworth Avenue - Yonkers, NY 10701-2509 -- (914) 375-1510
tbetz@panix.com | marob!upaya!tbetz@phri.nyu.edu | upaya!tbetz@panix.com
---------
"I wouldn't say it if I didn't know it wasn't true." -- Emmanuel Transmission
=============================================================================
From: cmg0788@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Christopher Masiewicz)
Newsgroups: alt.drugs
Subject: Hight Times in Texas
Message-ID: <1991Jul12.004238.526@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
I found this in another group. I just had to cross-post it here.
From: gallo@cs.albany.edu (Andrew Gallo)
I saw this on Digital's internal Deadhead BBS and I had to copy it.
Its good for a laugh...
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This is copied from a New England newspaper via a friend. Probably a
New Hampshire paper, it's called the "Sun", but the cutout I got
doesn't say what town....anyway, copied without permission, but worth
it anyway:
ENTIRE TOWN GETS HIGH AS COPS BURN MARIJUANA
- by John Coffin
February 19, 1991
RESIDENTS OF a Texas town had a high time for a day when the wind
shifted as sheriff's deputies burned 500 pounds of confiscated
marijuana in a nearby field.
"It was weird, but it was great," says Deputy Wilson Vernon.
"everyone was mellow. The only problem we had was controlling the rush
on the diner and the convenience stores."
Some residents of the town of Moses Rose, especially business people,
have asked the board of supervisors to make the burning of marijuana an
annual event.
"It was wonderful for business," says Harry Grogan, manager of the
local supermarket.
"People got the munchies and there was a run on almost everything
from chocolate chip cookies to ice cream. A lot of people couldn't
wait to get through the checkout line. They ate as they waited."
Belle Nolan, owner of Belle's Diner, says: "It was a madhouse. We
ran out of hamburger meat in an hour. I had to send a waitress to the
supermarket to restock on ice cream -- but there wasn't much left by
that time."
The only local businesses to suffer were the two bars and a liquor
store.
Deputy Vernon says the large cache of marijuana had been confiscated
over the previous 12 months. "Some of the farmers supplement their
regular crops with marijuana," he says.
"They grow it between rows of corn, where it's hard to spot.
Usually, we just go in and rip up the plants and store them in garbage
bags as evidence."
Once the growers have been convicted and fined, the bags are held
until there's enough for a large burning.
"Normally, we pick a day to burn when the wind isn't blowing. This
year, however, the wind picked up out of the Gulf and sent heavy clouds
of smoke over Moses Rose," Vernon explains.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Well *I* thought it was funny...
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------<
> Andy Gallo | State University of | "If six, turned out to be <
> gallo@cs.albany.edu | New York at Albany | nine, I don't mind..." 8-) <
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------<
=============================================================================
From: johnson@mot.com ("Johnson")
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,talk.politics.drugs,alt.drugs
Subject: Better police powers for a Better Police State
Just read this in the Chicago Tribune and, frankly, I'm scared.
LET'S FIGHT CRIME AS CHINESE DO, MARTIN SAYS
Chicago Police Supt. LeRoy Martin has returned from Chine with a modest
proposal for the war on crime: The suspension of certain constitutional
rights and emulation of the Chinese prison system.
"The sanitary facilities are a bucket. The prisoners are given a bowl
of rice and a thermos bottle of tea. And then they're locked down,"
said Martin Thursday of his recent tour of Chinese prisons.
"I know we're a democracy, but you know, I don't think everything the
Communists do can't be copied. ...And I think there are some things
they do that are better than what we do."
[...]
He noted that drug dealers were sentenced to execution by firing squad,
adding: "We give drug dealers I-bonds here, and what do they do? They
go back out and sell more drugs."
[...]
"We need to look at [the Consitution] and maybe from time to time we
should curtail some of those rights," Martin said.
[...]
"You would see thzat a lot of people would be in favor of the kind of
things that I am talking about," Martin said.
Reminded that Adolf Hitler's ideas were also popular in Nazi Germany,
the superindendent replied: "And they had a very low crime rate then."
[...]
Martin recognized that his proposals would violate the Constitution,
which he suggested should be altered.
[...]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anyone know where I can go to join the Libertarian Party?
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| "Johnson" | Disclaimer: I wasn't even BORN when that happened! |
| johnson@mot.com | |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
=============================================================================
From: aldis@peg.UUCP
Subject: Europe's Drug/HIV War
/* Written 11:28 am Jun 27, 1991 by support in peg:drugs.foreign */
/* ---------- "Europe's Drug/HIV War" ---------- */
Subject: Europe's Drug/HIV War
/* Written 11:36 am Jun 26, 1991 by pacificnews in peg:pacnews.samples */
/* ---------- "Europe's Drug/HIV War" ---------- */
COPYRIGHT PACIFIC NEWS SERVICE
450 Mission Street, Room 506
San Francisco, CA 94105
415-243-4364
NEWS ANALYSIS -- 1245 WORDS
EUROPE'S DRUG WAR TARGETS MORE DEADLY MENACE THAN
NARCOTICS
EDITOR'S NOTE: Flush with victory from the Gulf war, America finds
itself still very much embroiled in the war that never seems to end, the
one on drugs. Yet Europe is increasingly going its own way on drug
policy, spurred by fears of an enemy more deadly than any narcotic:
AIDS. Its approach, known as "harm reduction," is saving lives. PNS
correspondent David Beers recently visited European cities that have
pioneered this approach in recent years. Beers is a senior editor of
Mother Jones, where his lengthier look at harm reduction appears.
BY DAVID BEERS, PACIFIC NEWS SERVICE
The drug control buzzword in Europe these days is "Harm Reduction,"
a logic that spurns legalization but also abandons the U.S. metaphor of
war. Its success is declared by police and health workers alike because it
draws drug users above ground while keeping in check a far more
deadly menace than any narcotic -- AIDS transmitted by dirty needles.
In harm reduction embracing Holland, government figures show the
nation's addict population, smaller per capita than the U.S.'s, is aging
and not growing. HIV rates among injectors in the big cities levelled
off at 20 percent three years ago. (In New York the HIV rate among
junkies is around 60 percent.) In England's Liverpool, a harm
reduction pioneer hard hit by heroin, that rate is now 1.6 percent.
Harm reduction approaches take sometimes startling shape, as a recent
visit to The Netherlands and Liverpool revealed:
* Aggressive needle exchange. Backed by a well-endowed national
health system, 40 Dutch cities have syringe exchange programs.
Amsterdam alone swaps nearly a million syringes a year through
clinics and vans that crisscross the city, dispensing the heroin substitute
methadone, clean needles and AIDS advice. The mobile approach
reaches skittish users and also defuses citizens' "not in my
neighborhood" attitudes toward permanent clinics.
In Rotterdam the health department has installed vending machines
to serve needle users when clinics are closed. Pop a used needle in the
syringe-shaped slot, and out slides a wrapped, sterile replacement.
In Liverpool, the government-funded needle exchange got started in
1986 by swapping bags of used needles with a major dealer. The state
issues plastic boxes to heavy users and even sellers, so they can
transport dozens of dirty needles safely back to the clinic, and get more.
* Health centers for on-going addicts. "Drug services in this country
have been aimed at people who want to stop," says Allan Parry, a
founder of Liverpool's Maryland Center. "Now, because of AIDS, we
have to reach drug users who want to carry on. And that means we
have to change our services to suit their lifestyle." So his health clinic
sends savvy workers out to find drug users and not only swap needles
and hand out condoms, but teach them less dangerous ways of
injecting. The Center first attracts addicts by offering syringes, then
ends up treating abscesses and other conditions they would rarely have
revealed to the regular health care system.
*A Junky "Union." The Dutch government pays drug addicts to fight
for their rights, giving nearly $100,000 a year to the Amsterdam
Junkybund (Junky Union) ensconced in an old canalside office.
Headed by non-drug using Rene Mol, addicts press for late-night needle
exchanges and less police harassment. The Junkybund also advises the
government on its drug programs and helped work the bugs out of the
needle vending machine.
* Public places where drug use is allowed. In Rotterdam, Father Hans
Visser makes a spacious lavatory in the basement of his church
available to addicts, and refuses to speculate on what goes on in the
stalls. His logic is that "it is better than doing it out on the streets," and
gives a chance to reach drug users with treatment and AIDS
information, as well as religion. Motivated by similar logic,
Switzerland allows addicts to shoot up openly in a city park.
Holland's famed "coffee shops," where technically illegal cannabis can
be bought and smoked, are sanctioned refuges because, as Dutch
officials explain, they "split the market" so that a marijuana buyer
won't be urged to try more dangerous stuff. Coffee shops caught
purveying harder drugs, like cocaine or heroin, are promptly shut
down.
* "Flexible" drug enforcement. Holland's "drug czar" Eddy Engelsman,
perhaps Europe's leading harm reduction proponent, argues that
severely criminalizing drug use just drives it underground, making
health and crime problems worse.
The best approach, says Engelsman, is nuanced, pragmatic, businesslike
-- zakelyk is the Dutch word for all three rolled into one. Holland's
drug laws carry stiff penalties for users and sellers, but police and
judges are given wide latitude in how they are enforced; the official
goal is that the punishment should never outweigh the harm that
drug taking itself causes.
The Netherlands inverts the U.S. drug budget ratio, funnelling the
bulk of its funds into prevention, treatment and research, funding a
wide range of rehabilitation programs, and a curriculum that teaches
kids the risks of all intoxicants. For fear of glamorizing illegal drug
taking's outlaw appeal, "We keep a low profile," says Engelsman. "No
mass media campaigns. No policemen into the school. No fingers
pointing, saying you shouldn't do this and that. Reduce the problem,
control the problem and don't make a moral issue of it."
* Prescribed drugs for addicts. From his bland offices in the town of
Widness just outside Liverpool, psychiatrist John Marks carries out the
most controversial of all harm reduction approaches. He writes out
dozens of prescriptions for heroin, crack-style cocaine and
amphetamines for local addicts who declare no intention of quitting.
It has been British policy since 1924 that the best way to treat addicts is
to wean them off drugs, but if that can't be done, to prescribe whatever
the doctor thinks they need. Marks is one of the few doctors with the
stomach to prescribe hard stuff, though. He reminds that heroin
addicts finance their habits by buying more than they need, cutting it
with "something nice and heavy, like brick dust," pushing that to new
recruits, thus expanding the industry. Marks asserts that his
prescriptions have undermined that criminal pyramid scheme.
"Nobody's going to pay a fortune to gangsters to get rubbish and
perhaps be threatened, when they can get pure, excellent stuff from me
for free."
Given a way out of the black market hustle, Marks argues, his clients
might now be able to imagine a future beyond the next fix, and if that
leads them to decide they do want to kick, Marks is there to guide them
into one of many free rehab programs. His willingness to cooperate
with police -- he turns in patients he knows are committing drug
crimes -- plus the fact that heroin street sales and drug-related crime
has dropped in the Widness area, has the powers-that-be on his side,
says Marks.
While harm reduction methods can set an American's ethical compass
tumbling, so can the increasingly skewed casualty figures from this
country's own war on drugs. Although 80 percent of U.S. drug users
are white, the majority arrested are black. (Drug prosecutions of white
juveniles actually dropped 15 percent between 1985 and 1988, while
jumping 88 percent for minority youth.) The U.S. now incarcerates its
citizens at a higher rate than any other nation, and three quarters of the
new $10 billion drug war budget continues to go to policing and prisons
instead of education and treatment. Middle-class cocaine use is down,
but inner-city crack and heroin use is on the rise and the HIV virus
spread via dirty needles is today the number one source of AIDS in the
United States, hitting minority groups especially hard.
Dr. Arnold Trebach, who teaches criminology at American University
in Washington D.C. and heads the nearby private Drug Policy
Foundation, argues that it is time this country began experimenting
with harm reduction techniques, for the simple reason that they save
more lives. "What the English and Dutch have taught me," he says,
"is that you can disapprove of drug use, but you don't have to hate
users."
(06261991) **** END **** COPYRIGHT PNS
/
=============================================================================
From: seward@CCVAX1.NCSU.EDU (Bill Seward)
Subject: Search and seizure in the Drug Wars
Message-ID: <0094CF54.E5C9FEC0@CCVAX1.NCSU.EDU>
An interesting story in the Sunday paper. Datelined Pittsburgh by the
Associated Press, The Pittsburugh Press has documented 510 cases from
across the country in which innocent people (or those possessing very small
amounts of drugs) have had their possessions seized by anti-drug 'crusaders'.
These seizures occured over an 18 monther period ending last December.
I'll direct quote the two really good cases they write about:
"One of them was Willie Jones of Nashville, Tenn.
The gardening contractor bundled up $9,600 from last year's profits in February
and headed for Houston to buy flowers and shrubs. He makes the trip twice a
year.
As he waited at an airport gate, two officers who searched him seized his money.
They beleived he was buying or selling drugs, the newspaper reported.
The police let Jones go, gave him a receipt and kept his money.
No evidence of wrong doing was produced, and no charges were filed. The
money was never returned, The Press reported."
"For example, in April 1989 deputies in Jefferson Davis Parish, La. seized
$23,000 in cash and a truck belonging to Johnny Sotello, saying a space in
the truck could have been used to hide drugs.
Sotello said he was carrying the cash because he was on his way to an
auction. He was never charged."
The article goes on to say what the seized property is used for--yes, you
guessed it, it goes to fund further drug investigations.
OK, let's stipulate that these two cases as presented are in fact true.
What we have here is scary. First, we are now guilty until proven innocent.
Second, it is no longer necessary to go through due process to seize property--
it isn't even necessary to charge anyone, more or less prove their guilt.
Third, while the article doesn't specifically say so, it would seem, on the face
of it, that there was no probable cause in even searching these people in the
first place.
So let's see. If this is true, we can toss out the Fourth and Fifth
Amednments and possible, depending on interpretation, the Sixth and Seventh
as well.
Keep at 'em boys, only 7 Articles and 24 Amendments to go.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Seward
Cutaneous Pharmacology & Toxicology Center, NC State University
SEWARD@NCSUVAX.BITNET SEWARD@CCVAX1.CC.NCSU.EDU
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
=============================================================================
Subject: Search and Seizure for Pay!
[CAPS mine for emphasis]
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Informants can win share of seized assets
(The Plain Dealer, Thursday, August 15, 1991-Page 1B)
PITTSBURGH--Information about crime is paying big for police
informants who are promised part of the proceeds if their tips
lead to forfeiture of assets. The Pittsburgh Press reported the
recent boom in forfeiture led informants to begin snitching in
exchange for a share of the government's take.
The U.S. Justice Department's Asset Forfeiture Fund last year
gave $24 million to informants as their share of forfeited
items. It has $22 million budgeted for informants this year.
The informants come from all walks of life, including clerks for
package services and a Hell's Angels club member whose testimony
across the country made him a millionaire.
Police affidavits and court testimony in several cities show
clerks for large package handlers, including air freight
companies, open suspicious packages and alert police to what
they find, the newspaper said.
TO DO THE SAME THING, POLICE WOULD NEED A SEARCH WARRANT.
Under federal and most states' laws, forfeiture proceeds return
to the law enforcement agency that builds the case. Those
agencies also control rewards to informants.
The arrangement means police and informants now have a financial
incentive to seize a person's goods--a mix that may be too
intoxicating, said Lt. Norbert Kowalski, director of the
Pittsburgh airport's anti-drug team.
"Obviously, we want all the help we can get in stopping these
drug traffickers," Kowalski said.
=============================================================================
Subject: Pawn shop seized
Keywords: forfeiture law, owner allowed to BUY it back
This is in today's (Aug. 28, 1991) issue of the Rocky Mountain News.
On May 17, authorities from Jefferson County and the city of Edgewater,
Colorado seized a pawn shop owned by a Dean Porter.
The reason: suspicion of improper report filing (the idea is that by
filling out reports properly, it would cut down on the possibility of
fencing by theives). In three years, some 40,000 reports had been filed
with a "very small percentage" of them in error.
The authorities could find no evidence of any fencing activity after all,
so they told Porter that they would let him have his business back -- if
HE PAID THEM $50,000 AND AGREED NOT TO SUE.
=============================================================================
From: hagerp@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Paul Hager)
Subject: For your perusal -- U.S. Surgeon General's Actuarial info
The following is a list of deaths by substance for 1990.
Tobacco . . . . . . . . . . . . 360,000 [legal]
Alcohol . . . . . . . . . . . . 130,000 [legal]
Prescribed drugs . . . . . . . 18,675 [legal]
Caffeine . . . . . . . . . . . 5,800 [legal]
Cocaine . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,390 [illegal]
Heroin . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,147 [illegal]
Aspirin . . . . . . . . . . . . 986 [legal]
Marijuana . . . . . . . . . . . 0 [illegal]
Apropos of the above, a couple of days ago, I received a
referral from outside Indiana requesting information/assistance
about a drug testing problem. A person was in a bit of a bind
because, although self-employed, was going to be faced with
taking a piss test. The problem was that this person needed
health insurance and could find no company that did not require
a piss test. I was unable to offer any assistance with this
problem -- I don't know which insurance companies have this
requirement and which don't.
We had a brief chat in which we mused on the actuarial risks
associated with marijuana use. Subsequently, I found this
info. What does an insurance company do if a positive for
marijuana is obtained from a test -- lower rates? Just joking.
The Drug War witch hunt continues.
--
paul hager hagerp@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu
_Abstainer_, n. A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying
himself a pleasure. A total abstainter is one who abstains from
everything but abstention, and especially from activity in the affairs
of others. from _The Devil's Dictionary_ by Ambrose Bierce
=============================================================================
From: hagerp@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Paul Hager)
Subject: Editorial on drug testing and subway accident
Keywords: metabolite, drug test, impairment test
Following is an editorial I am submitting to the Bloomington
Herald-Times. I've tried to get the essential message across
in less than 750 words.
----------------------------cut here--------------------------
Drug Testing not the Answer to Subway Tragedy
by Paul Hager
[Paul Hager is a computer consultant and BCLU V.P. for Drug
Policy]
The tragic subway accident in New York City has prompted
some to call for an expansion of random drug testing.
Ironically, the accident has actually demonstrated what critics
have claimed all along: that current drug testing methods are
fatally flawed and protect no one.
The New York transit authorities already had a drug testing
program in place. In fact, this particular driver had passed two
previous drug tests. Given these facts, it is proper to ask by
what reasoning process more drug testing can be justified.
Why did drug testing, which has been heavily promoted by the
Reagan and Bush Administrations, fail to prevent this accident?
The answer is simple: drug testing, despite what people have been
misled into believing, does not detect the presence of
intoxicating drugs; it only detects leftover residues or
metabolites. There is very little overlap between the period of
intoxication and the period when the metabolite can be detected.
Consequently, whether the result of a drug test is positive or
negative, it bears no relationship to current intoxication on the
part of an individual. In other words, drug testing has nothing
to do with safety.
This subway accident, with its injuries and loss of life,
was preventable. Had the transit authorities been using computer
controlled devices called impairment testers instead of drug
testing, this accident would have never happened. The reason for
this is that impairment testers directly measure a person's
performance, objectively and reliably. Currently, these devices
are already being used by several companies around the nation.
Several of these companies are reporting impressive reductions in
accidents and workers' compensation claims (see Business Week,
June 3, 1991, p. 36).
The most popular impairment tester on the market is the
commercialized version of technology developed over 30 years ago
for the Air Force and NASA to test pilot performance. The device
tests a person's ability to track a randomly moving stimulus,
which is actually a blinking cursor on a computer screen. In the
three decades that this system has been in used, it has been
tested and refined and shown to be highly reliable as a measure
of impaired performance. Current models are based on the popular
IBM line of personal computers, so they are small, cheap and easy
to use.
Besides their reliability, impairment testers cost much less
than drug testing. A recent evaluation of the Federal
Government's drug testing program conducted by the Civil Service
Subcommittee showed that it cost $385 per person per year. In
contrast, the commercial impairment tester costs less than half
as much. Also, the impairment tester is designed to be used on a
daily basis. For maximum safety, the device could be used twice
each day for each worker: at the beginning and end of the shift.
Attempting to do the same thing with drug testing would probably
cost in excess of $10,000 per worker per day -- a ridiculous sum.
Impairment testing detects degraded performance, no matter
what the cause. This is a very important fact. Studies have
shown that lack of sleep is as important as alcohol as a cause of
accidents (see "Drowsy America", Time Magazine, December 17,
1990). No drug test will ever detect sleep deprivation; the
impairment detector will.
We can learn something from this accident and greatly reduce
the likelihood that it will be repeated. Had impairment testing
been used by the transit authority, the driver's reduced capacity
would have been detected and he would not have been allowed to
drive the subway train. The time has come to put an end to the
expensive and ineffective drug test and replace it with something
that will really work.
Readers interested in more information on this topic are
urged to contact the Indiana Civil Liberties Union at (317) 635-
4059.
--
paul hager hagerp@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu
"If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change
its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety
with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to
combat it." --Thomas Jefferson, 1st Inaugural, 4-Mar-1801
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