The Republican apologists are up in arms about the Clinton administration’s failed attempt to get the FDA to regulate cigarettes as a drug. They reason that, unlike marijuana and opium, nicotine has no medicinal value and, as toxic as it is, would be banned. If only the prohibitionists were that open in their designs since every argument against drug law reform could easily be made for criminalization of both cigarettes and alcohol. The fact is that nicotine, like cocaine, marijuana, opium, methamphetamine, and alcohol is primarily a recreational drug. And what kind of message would we be sending our children if we legalized [arbitrarily illegal] drugs?
The problem should be stated as such: what kind of message are we sending to our children when cigarettes, beer, and wine are being sold in the very same outlets where families get their food and household supplies? Society does not really want to encourage use of any kind of recreational drug - illegal or otherwise. Criminalization of alcohol merely gave a lot of people huge economic incentives to break the law and corrupt public officials, while allowing sleazoids like the Kennedy clan patriarch to get wealthy from the suffering of others. The war on drugs is doing the very same thing, but since there were fewer users to begin with, it is just taking a little longer. As with Prohibition, recreational drugs were sold by unscrupulous people with no incentive to provide safe or reliable products - as if any dealer worries about getting sued - who prey on children.
If we really wanted to send a strong message to our children that recreational drugs are dangerous, we would not allow them to be sold in the very same outlet with ordinary products. If we really wanted to keep recreational drugs out of the hands of minors with underdeveloped immune systems they would be sold in separate outlets where minors without parents would be denied entrance as they are in drinking establishments. Those who oppose drug law reform in the name of children are total frauds.
The sole purpose of drug testing is to detect off duty use of certain drugs, mostly certain recreational drugs; most people, including myself, have no problem with any employer banning the use of any drugs during work hours. There are only 2 legitimate reasons for an employer to ban personal use of any drug:
1] the drug is a performance enhancing drug such as stimulants or steroids which would encourage abuse in a competitive workforce.
2] the drug use affects safety - which would include any drug taken immediately before work, stimulants like caffeine which produce a rebound effect, and some hallucinogens which produce flashbacks.
Unfortunately, neither of these kinds of drugs are not presently being tested by employers to any significant degree - which should make thinking people wonder about the motivations of those who do drug test.