Drug Policy Opinion: Page 18

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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)
JUSTICE SCALIA, with whom JUSTICE STEVENS joins, dissenting:

The Court's response to this lack of evidence is that "there is little reason to believe that American workplaces are immune from [the] pervasive social problem" of drug abuse. Ante, at 674. Perhaps such a generalization would suffice if the workplace at issue could produce such catastrophic social harm that no risk whatever is tolerable--the secured areas of a nuclear power plant, for example, see Rushton v. Nebraska Public Power District, 844 F.2d 562 (CA8 1988). But if such a generalization suffices to justify demeaning bodily searches, without particularized suspicion, to guard against the bribing or blackmailing of a law enforcement agent, or the careless use of a firearm, then the Fourth Amendment has become frail protection indeed.

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

In the present case, by contrast, not only is the Customs Service thought to be "largely drug-free," but the connection between whatever drug use may exist and serious social harm is entirely speculative.

[...]

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

Today's decision would be wrong, but at least of more limited effect, if its approval of drug testing were confined to that category of employees assigned specifically to drug interdiction duties. Relatively few public employees fit that description. But in extending approval of drug testing to that category consisting of employees who carry firearms, the Court exposes vast numbers of public employees to this needless indignity. Logically, of course, if those who carry guns can be treated in this fashion, so can all others whose work, if performed under the influence of drugs may endanger others -- automobile drivers, operators of other potentially dangerous equipment, construction workers, school crossing guards. [...] Since drug use is not a particular problem in the Customs Service, employees throughout the Government are no less likely to violate the public trust by taking bribes to feed their drug habit, or by yielding to blackmail. Moreover, there is no reason why this super-protection against harms arising from drug use must be limited to public employees; a law requiring similar testing of private citizens who use dangerous instruments such as guns or cars, or who have access to classified information, would also be constitutional.

[...]

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

I do not believe for a minute that the driving force behind these drug-testing rules was any of the feeble justifications put forward by counsel here and accepted by the Court. The only plausible explanation, in my view, is what the Commissioner himself offered in the concluding sentence of his memorandum to Customs Service employees announcing the program: "Implementation of the drug screening program would set an important example in our country's struggle with this most serious threat to our national health and security." Or as respondent's brief to this Court asserted: "If a law enforcement agency and its employees do not take the law seriously, neither will the public on which the agency's effectiveness depends." Brief for Respondent 36. What better way to show that the Government is serious about its "war on drugs" than to subject its employees on the front line of that war to this invasion of their privacy and affront to their dignity? To be sure, there is only a slight chance that it will prevent some serious public harm resulting from Service employee drug use, but it will show to the world that the Service is "clean," and--most important of all--will demonstrate the determination of the Government to eliminate this scourge of our society! I think it obvious that this justification is unacceptable; that the impairment of individual liberties cannot be the means of making a point; that symbolism, even symbolism for so worthy a cause as the abolition of unlawful drugs, cannot validate an otherwise unreasonable search.

[...]

Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives Association (1989)
Opinion by: KENNEDY

The possession of unlawful drugs is a criminal offense that the Government may punish, but it is a separate and far more dangerous wrong to perform certain sensitive tasks while under the influence of those substances. Performing those tasks while impaired by alcohol is, of course, equally dangerous, though consumption of alcohol is legal in most other contexts.

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