ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, September 29, 1996 TAG: 9609300093
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
REGARDING your Sept. 19 news article, "Roanoke County schools may use drug-sniffing dogs":
I am a certified substance-abuse counselor who meets with children and families that are being severely injured as a direct result of teen-age drug and alcohol use and abuse.
Drug and alcohol use in the Roanoke Valley schools is now an epidemic. It's my estimate and the estimate of my colleagues that 70 percent to 80 percent of our school children are experimenting with drugs and even more use alcohol.
Our local court systems are overloaded with minors involved in drug- and alcohol-related offenses. It's reported that 90 percent of children that appear before the juvenile court are involved with drugs and alcohol. This is an extremely frightening problem that's out of control and in need of drastic interventions.
As a parent of two elementary school children, I am very anxious about their upcoming exposure to the drug and alcohol problem in both the junior and senior high schools. Although I am certainly going to do all I can to educate them to the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse, I cannot deny that they will be exposed to it. I pray that my involvement in their lives will act as a vaccine against this deadly epidemic, but I'm not at all certain of this. We must do all we can to get our heads out of the sand and aggressively go after the problem.
Parents are going to need to support much tougher interventions. Too many parents argue that we must protect the rights of privacy for children. However, children do not yet possess the maturity and judgment to monitor themselves.
We as parents need to support drug searches in our schools. We need to seriously consider the issue of mandatory urine drug screens in the schools for all students. We absolutely need to agree to fund our schools to provide qualified drug and alcohol counselors for every junior and senior high school.
We need to see drug and alcohol abuse as a wildly spreading virus among our children and view tough intervention as loving concern.
RONALD F. SALZBACH
ROANOKE
Clinton's care-less attitude on drugs
AS ONE of his first acts as president, Bill Clinton slashed the drug czar's office by 83 percent and cut 227 drug-enforcement agents. His former surgeon general, Jocelyn Elders, suggested that the government look into legalizing drugs. His attorney general, Janet Reno, recommended to a congressional committee the lessening of mandatory minimum sentences for drug use.
After 11 years of steady decline under President Reagan and President Bush, teen-age drug use has more than doubled under Clinton. According to preliminary estimates by Clinton's own Department of Health and Human Services, monthly marijuana use has increased 141 percent, monthly cocaine use has increased 167 percent, and lifetime heroin use has increased 122 percent.
Such terrible results led Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., former chairman of a congressional committee on narcotics, to say, ``I have never, never, never seen a president who cares less about this issue."
When asked on MTV if he would inhale marijuana if given the chance again, Clinton told millions of young people nationwide: "Sure, if I could. I tried before." When interviewed again by MTV, he claimed his previous flip comments concerning drug use were a joke.
America is losing the war on drugs under Clinton's presidency, and that is no joke. The American people - in particular, young people - deserve better than a wink and nod when it comes to the message emanating from the White House on drug abuse. They need better than bad examples to emulate. They deserve a serious war on drugs.
That's just what they'll get from Bob Dole and Jack Kemp. No joke.
ALFRED C. ANDERSON
VINTON
Warner's vote lacked value
I WRITE to protest Sen. John Warner's recent votes for the Defense of Marriage Act and against legislation to protect against job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
As a patriotic and committed public servant, I cannot understand why he would vote in favor of a legal stratification of our society according to the personal preferences of its members - all of whom he is sworn to serve. Is there really a negative social and economic impact to the legal union of lesbian and gay couples?
By their actions, lesbian and gay couples uphold the same ``family values'' that straight couples do - commitment to their nuclear families, their communities, and to the religions and traditions in which they were raised.
One notable exception is that, in their embodiment of true family values, they are not bigoted and self-righteous in their actions toward others - a quality not enjoyed by this country's conservative movement.
VAIRA HARIK
BLACKSBURG
Security lapses start at the top
THE SEPT. 17 news article (``Probe blames brass'') said that an independent report places blame, from the ground commander to the joint chiefs of staff, for the attack that killed 19 U.S. airmen in Saudi Arabia last June. The report stated security was ``crude.''
As I thought about this, the book ``Unlimited Access'' by Gary Aldrich came to mind. He's a 30-year veteran of the FBI who was assigned to the White House to ensure that all people working on the White House staff, or coming in contact with the president, had FBI background checks to make sure the president's life wouldn't be in danger.
He tells how the comprehensive security system used during six presidencies was turned off so the Clintons could bring their friends into the White House. For more than a year, only 24 people had security clearance to handle thousands of classified documents. Staff people at the highest level would refuse or ``stonewall'' the FBI so they couldn't check into their past for security clearance.
Aldrich and members of the long-time permanent White House staff were shocked to discover recent drug use, rampant theft and open gay/lesbian sex. New light is shed on White House sandals such as ``Nannygate,'' ``Travelgate'' and mysteries concerning Vince Foster's death.
After reading his book, I have no doubt that Hillary Rodham Clinton is making the decisions in the White House and Bill Clinton has little interest in it. He just wants to get re-elected.
PAULINE JOHNSON
ROANOKE
A user-fee to defend species
A SEPT. 17 Associated Press article ("Uncle Sam plans to tax birders, hikers") was misleading. The excise tax referred to in the article is not yet legislation, but will be proposed as legislation next year by a coalition of more than 1,200 conservation-related businesses and organizations and a significant number of governors and congressional legislators. The feds have been pushed to support this initiative by the states and conservationists, not the other way around.
The basic premise of the initiative known as "Teaming with Wildlife" is that purchasers of outdoor recreation products - such as backpacks, binoculars, canoes, birdseed, field guides, etc. - are willing to pay a small surcharge (less than 5 percent) on these items to help maintain the wildlife we enjoy. The funding would be passed through to the states to be used on the ground for nongame wildlife-related conservation, education and recreation projects.
Currently, no significant funding source is available for 95 percent of this country's wildlife species which are not endangered or are pursued by sportsmen. Many songbirds, native fish, amphibians and other species in Virginia are declining, and there is no significant source of stable funding to do anything about it.
In Virginia, groups like the Virginia Society of Ornithology, the Virginia Wildlife Federation, The Izaak Walton League, the Virginia Association of Soil and Water Districts, Virginia's Explore Park and businesses like ``For the Birds'' and ``Zeiss Optical'' are helping to build a Virginia coalition to promote the idea of this user-fee. Our hope is that we can stabilize funding for programs that will recover these species before it's too late so that our children can enjoy the great outdoors just as we do today.
JEFF WALDON
Cochair, Virginia Coalition for
Teaming with Wildlife, Virginia Chapter
of The Wildlife Society
BLACKSBURG
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