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From: cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: net.legal
Subject: Re: Drugs in America
Message-ID: <524@kontron.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 20-Feb-86 13:13:06 EST
Article-I.D.: kontron.524
Posted: Thu Feb 20 13:13:06 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 24-Feb-86 06:17:32 EST
References: <2607@sdcrdcf.UUCP> <413@packard.UUCP>
Organization: Kontron Electronics, Irvine, CA
Lines: 27

> I personally believe that drugs should be legalized (after all
> what right do I have to tell someone else how to lead their lives?)
> 

100% agreement with on THIS point.

> However, on the issue of drug testing I agree. The police cannot
> search your home or your car unless they can show just cause;
> so allowing an employer, or any other agency to search my body or
> mind without just cause is unconstitutional. 
> 

There seems to be a big misunderstanding about what the Bill of Rights
controls.  The Bill of Rights is a set of restrictions on the Federal
Government's power; the Fourteenth Amendment extends those protections
(well, most of them -- the courts are a little inconsistent in this
area) to restrict the States and their subsidiary governments.  The
Bill of Rights was NEVER intended to restrict or control private
entities, because in the view of the Founding Fathers (and myself), 
only the government has the monopolistic power to abuse us so severely
that restrictions needed to be part of the Constitution.

That doesn't mean that the government doesn't have laws to restrict
what a private employer can do as far as searching or requiring
lie detector tests, and it doesn't mean the government can't make
laws to restrict these issues -- it just means the Constitutional
protections we have don't necessarily apply to private companies.