Drug Policy Opinion: Page 17

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Drug Policy Opinion

Statements found in Court opinions regarding illicit substances. Public policy considerations, individual predilections of the Justice writing the opinion, the objective and subjective views on the the drugs, the drug use and the drug war... All of these can be found in this section.

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National Treasury Employees Union v. Von Raab (1989)
Opinion by: KENNEDY

..[T]he almost unique mission of the Service gives the Government a compelling interest in ensuring that many of these covered employees do not use drugs even off duty, for such use creates risks of bribery and blackmail against which the Government is entitled to guard. In light of the extraordinary safety and national security hazards that would attend the promotion of drug users to positions that require the carrying of firearms or the interdiction of controlled substances, the Service's policy of deterring drug users from seeking such promotions cannot be deemed unreasonable.

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National Treasury Employees Union v. Von Raab (1989)
Opinion by: KENNEDY

We think petitioners' [...] argument -- that the Service's testing program is ineffective because employees may attempt to deceive the test by a brief abstention before the test date, or by adulterating their urine specimens -- overstates the case. As the Court of Appeals noted, addicts may be unable to abstain even for a limited period of time, or may be unaware of the "fade-away effect" of certain drugs. 816 F.2d at 180.

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National Treasury Employees Union v. Von Raab (1989)
JUSTICE SCALIA, with whom JUSTICE STEVENS joins, dissenting:

I decline to join the Court's opinion in the present case because neither frequency of use nor connection to harm is demonstrated or even likely. In my view the Customs Service rules are a kind of immolation of privacy and human dignity in symbolic opposition to drug use.

[...]

National Treasury Employees Union v. Von Raab (1989)
JUSTICE SCALIA, with whom JUSTICE STEVENS joins, dissenting:

It is not apparent to me that a Customs Service employee who uses drugs is significantly more likely to be bribed by a drug smuggler, any more than a Customs Service employee who wears diamonds is significantly more likely to be bribed by a diamond smuggler--unless. perhaps, the addiction to drugs is so severe, and requires so much money to maintain, that it would be detectable even without benefit of a urine test. Nor is it apparent to me that Customs officers who use drugs will be appreciably less "sympathetic" to their drug-interdiction mission, any more than police officers who exceed the speed limit in their private cars are appreciably less sympathetic to their mission of enforcing the traffic laws. (The only difference is that the Customs officer's individual efforts, if they are irreplaceable, can theoretically affect the availability of his own drug supply--a prospect so remote as to be an absurd basis of motivation.) Nor, finally, is it apparent to me that urine tests will be even marginally more effective in preventing gun-carrying agents from risking "impaired perception and judgment" than is their current knowledge that, if impaired, they may be shot dead in unequal combat with unimpaired smugglers -- unless, again, their addiction is so severe that no urine test is needed for detection.

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National Treasury Employees Union v. Von Raab (1989)
JUSTICE SCALIA, with whom JUSTICE STEVENS joins, dissenting:

What is absent in the Government's justifications -- notably absent, revealingly absent, and as far as I am concerned dispositively absent -- is the recitation of even a single instance in which any of the speculated horribles actually occurred: an instance, that is, in which the cause of bribetaking, or of poor aim, or of unsympathetic law enforcement, or of compromise of classified information, was drug use. Although the Court points out that several employees have in the past been removed from the Service for accepting bribes and other integrity violations, and that at least nine officers have died in the line of duty since 1974, ante, at 669, there is no indication whatever that these incidents were related to drug use by Service employees. Perhaps concrete evidence of the severity of a problem is unnecessary when it is so well known that courts can almost take judicial notice of it; but that is surely not the case here.

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