Fayetteville
City
Council
Rejects
Random
Drug
Testing
9/11/98
On Tuesday, September 1, the city council of Fayetteville, Arkansas rejected a proposal which would have subjected the council to random drug tests. The proposal, sponsored by Alderman Trent Trumbo, died for lack of a second. "I view this resolution as dangerous political grandstanding, an invasion of the privacy of every alderman" Alderman Kit Williams, a former U.S. Army officer told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Trent Trumbo spoke with The Week Online: "I introduced this measure because I have a problem with double standards. We test our fire and police personnel, and beginning next year we will be randomly testing every student in our public schools. The reaction that I've had from my constituents is, 'why are we getting tested but you, who make the rules, don't have to submit to tests.' That came from a number of sources, including students, and I didn't have a good answer for them." Trumbo continued, "I have a lot of respect for the people with whom I serve on the council, we're all friends and if they think that random drug testing is an invasion of their privacy, I can understand that. But it seems to me that you then have to consider whether you ought to be mandating that someone else submit to something that you find objectionable when it pertains to you." Regarding the city's plan to randomly drug test its students, Trumbo added: "Personally, I think that testing students might well be beneficial, in that it gives kids a way to say no, to resist peer pressure. But I didn't think it was right to test only those students who participate in extra-curricular activities, the way we have it right now, without testing everyone. Again, that's a double standard. And I would add that the reason that I support the testing of students at all is that the results are completely confidential. We offer help and counseling. This isn't about catching people and getting kids in trouble, its about finding out who may need help and then offering it to them." Alderman Kit Williams, who strongly opposed the measure, told The Week Online, "I can certainly understand Alderman Trumbo's concern over double standards, but two wrongs, in this case two invasions of privacy, certainly don't make a right. I'm opposed to random drug testing under any circumstances. If there's cause, or if, in the case of a driver there's an accident, okay. But to test someone without cause, to me, is improper. Until this vote, I wasn't really aware of the new policy for students, which is under the direction of the board of education, not the city council. My son recently graduated from high school here. He was a swimmer and he made good grades. He was never tested, and I'm not sure he would have objected, but I sure as heck would have." Williams continued. "Now, we're under federal mandate to test our drivers, but here we are looking to expand that program to include a whole bunch of new city employees. Anyone whose job is 'safety sensitive', and let me tell you that the city plans to interpret that very broadly. I know that the supreme court has ruled on this, and that they have been generally supportive of testing, and I tend to think that they have it wrong. But there's a difference between what is legal and what constitutes good policy. The constitution defines only the outer limits of governmental power." "I was a prosecutor in this state for over five years," Williams, who is now a defense attorney concluded. "And let me tell you that my experience taught me that the drug which causes the most problems, the most violence and the most suffering in our state is alcohol. Hands down."
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