From the Wool-sack

• Publication year: 1986
• Pages: 1830
• Citation: Vol. 15 No. 10 Pg. 1830

15 Colo.Law. 1830 Colorado Lawyer 1986.

1986, October, Pg. 1830. From the Wool-Sack

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1830

Vol. 15, No. 10, Pg. 1830

From the Wool-Sack

by Christopher R. Brauchli

Boulder---443-1118

Preachers say, "Do as I say, not as I do."

John Selden, Preaching

The real question is, what is the human body? Is it a citadel that should not be invaded, as one writer has suggested, or is it nothing more than a billboard to advertise the name of the maker of the apparel with which it is usually covered?

For purposes of this column, we will consider the body as a citadel. This concept is usually encountered in discussions dealing with the analysis of bodily fluids to see if their proprietor has been using drugs. It has been much in the news of late. Here's why.

President Reagan announced in early August that he and his cabinet intended to submit to urinalyses. The tests were not for the purpose of demonstrating that neither he nor his cabinet was using drugs, although it was hoped that that would be an incidental benefit. (To my knowledge not even the administration's severest critics had made that suggestion.)(fn1) The reason Mr. Reagan ordered drug tests for himself, his cabinet and the White House staff can be found in the deportment before a Congressional committee of a man named Rodney Smith.

In 1983, Mr. Reagan appointed a commission to study drug use in the United States. After thirty-two months of work, it recommended that all government employees be given tests for drug use and that the government award no federal contracts to private employers who did not begin drug testing programs. It urged all private employers seriously to consider testing their employees as well. The recommendations included the suggestion that the tests be given without warning. There was considerable controversy over this proposal.

Critics questioned whether or not it posed Fourth Amendment problems. Mr. Reagan knew the answer to that one. There are none. He learned that from Mr. Meese who is a specialist on the U.S. Constitution. Mr. Meese interprets the Constitution and presumably its amendments as the framers would have done. Those who prepared the Fourth Amendment had not a clue that it might be construed to bar random urinalysis to test for drug use. Hence, that amendment has no applicability to random unannounced urinalysis.

Mr. Smith, the commission's deputy executive director and author of the drug...