Drug Problem Is No Joking Matter

I recently joined my Bellflower City Council colleagues to initiate a drug testing program in our city that calls for City Council members to be tested. Illegal drug use has reached epidemic levels. I think we should support and emulate the efforts of President Ronald Reagan to be voluntarily drug tested, to join him in setting an example. Cooperation is needed, not mocking insincerity.

We have had behind-the-scenes joking and scoffing in Bellflower, and I resent it. The drug problem is no joke, and we should not snicker at President Reagan’s efforts. The people of our nation need help. Drugs have injected a sickness into our cultural and moral fiber, and it does no good to sneer and smirk at those who are committed to fight the drug abuse epidemic.

There are many public and private sector positions of a sensitive nature where drug users should not be allowed to perform. Bus drivers, teachers, doctors, nurses, policemen, firemen and even the telephone receptionist are only a few of such positions. Drug users need help. We must make every effort to discover their dependencies and then address the problem, case by case, to rid our nation of the drug abuse disease.

Young people will be less apt to seek the false pleasures of drugs if they know that career opportunities in the private and public sector will require testing that will expose them. Let’s all pull together--parents, students, teachers, school administrators, elected officials, public administrators and everyone else--and support President Reagan’s fight against drug abuse. I pledge to do everything I can in the City of Bellflower.

--JOHN ANSDELL

city councilman, Bellflower