RANDOM DRUG TESTING

Starting Jan. 1, about 3,600 Kentucky mental health employees will be
subjected to random drug tests. And job applicants won't be hired if they
test positive.

"It's a common-sense thing to do," Mark Birdwhistell, secretary of the
Cabinet for Health and Family Services, said. And he's right, given
the vulnerability of those the state cares for.

Chris Wells, executive director of the Kentucky Association of State
Employees, disagrees, saying there's no evidence of a drug problem and
that testing should be conducted only on an as-needed basis. That's
understandable, but unworkable.

Kentucky State Police and Transportation Cabinet employees are already
subject to tests. In Corrections, which intends to test its 3,500
employees, too, about 10 percent of recent job applicants tested
positive for illegal drugs. Random drug testing in the public and
private sectors has been around since the 1980s -- long enough to
prove that it's a tolerable invasion of privacy that protects
customers and co-workers from avoidable danger. If anything, Kentucky
is late to the party on drug testing as a means to extend extra
measures of protection to a highly vulnerable population: mentally
fragile people incapable of self-defense against physical or sexual
abuse by those who are supposed to help them.

As for Mr. Wells' fears, he should be comforted by Mr. Birdwhistell's
plan to provide substance-abusing employees with assistance for their
problems. Besides, nothing in the new testing would preclude the
workers' association from doing what its members rightly expect, which
is to represent them if they are unjustly accused or unfairly treated.