free-tips-to-pass-a-drug-test

BILL WOULD REQUIRE DRUG TEST FOR CANDIDATES

HARRISBURG -- If our lawmakers are going to such great troubles to uncover who among our pro athletes are injecting what chemicals into which body parts, perhaps we ought to know the same of our lawmakers.

Some might say that, if anything, our lawmakers appear to be taking performance-retarding drugs.

But many of them apparently believe it's time that drug testing be extended to those who seek public office.  Looking around the state Capitol, it's clear that few of the men and women elected to represent Pennsylvania voters are using performance-enhancing substances, unless you count the extra-large taco bean salad served at the cafeteria on Tuesdays, which undoubtedly enhances performance in one physical category or another.

So, yeah, this is not a buff bunch.  But there is a larger roster of equally ingestible and injectable substances, many of which would compromise a politician's ability to consider matters of policy, or at least his ability to drive home afterward.

"I've never been drug-tested," said state Rep.  Frank LaGrotta, D-Ellwood City, whose name is one of 22 appearing at the top of a new House bill that would require drug testing for every candidate for every elected office in Pennsylvania.  "I think we're making important decisions.  It would be good to know that we don't have a substance-abuse problem."

Politicians at all levels are generally exempt from the types of drug testing that are administered to the people who work for them, to the truck drivers who deliver their mail, even to journalists who write about them.

As with most of the thousands of House bills introduced during each two-year session, odds that this bill will pass into law are about equal to the odds that Pittsburgh Pirates infielder Ty Wigginton will someday top Hank Aaron's career home run mark.  Which is to say, low odds.

That's mainly because of the U.S.  Supreme Court, which struck down by an 8-1 vote a Georgia law that required drug testing among prospective public officials.  In 1997, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote that the drug test "diminishes personal privacy for a symbol's sake." The law, the court said, did not fit within the narrow category of searches and seizures that are conducted without suspicion or just cause, but are still constitutionally permissible.

Yet nationwide, some hopelessly hopeful lawmakers continue to pitch the drug-testing laws.  Members of New York's Legislature proposed two years ago, and again this year, a bill that would compel each candidate for office to submit to a drug test, and would also set out the procedure by which candidates would be notified of, and could challenge, a positive test result.

The first time around, the bill died without action.

Also, a Republican lawmaker from New Mexico this year proposed a voluntary version of the drug law -- candidates for public office wouldn't be forced to submit to the test, but they would have to explain in writing why they decided to avoid the test.

The lawmaker, state Sen.  Steve Komadina, said the random testing was needed because a state judge had been busted for cocaine possession and drunken driving in 2004, according to The Associated Press.