Athletes drug testing: An attack on right to privacy
1986Carole Seligman 1986-08Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 15 →
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14 SOCIALIST ACTION AUGUST 1986 Sportswriters who speculate about forced drug testing of professional athletes often ignore the fundamentals of the problem. Mandatory drug-testing programs, such as the one recently announced by football Commissioner Pete Rozelle, violate the right of privacy and the right not to have the boss controlling one's time off the job.
The cocaine-induced deaths of basketball star Len Bias and football defensive back Don Rogers are being used by the team owners not so much to push education and rehabilitation for drug users but to campaign against the players' rights.
Baseball pitcher Steve Howe was just fired from the San Jose Bees (where he had been sent down from the majors for drug use) based on a positive test for cocaine use after eight previous negative tests. Such tests are often unreliable.
Newspaper editorials have made flimsy excuses for forced drug testing of the football, basketball, and baseball players. After all, it is argued, "they are paid such huge salaries. America's youth: "they are role models for But these excuses fail to justify what the capitalist class hopes will set the trend for widespread required drug testing in the workplace. Should such a practice come about, the bosses will have another weapon to use in the daily class war between themselves and the workers.
Under a ruling in the federal courts, forced drug testing is already being foisted on workers in the rail industry. The result is arbitrary firings and disciplining of these workers. Government employees may be next in line for forced testing, according to the recommendations of the president's Commission on Organized Crime.
Widespread drug use is a symptom of a society where a lot is going wrong for a lot of people. Drug abuse like alcoholism —also rampant in American society—is one available means of escape.
Only a deep-going, revolutionary change in society and all of its institutions -schools, places and conditions of work, and government—will make possible a rejection of drugs and alcohol. Such rejection can only be voluntary.
In the meantime, the unions and all supporters of civil liberties need to fight against any invasion of our right to privacy.