Grand Jury’s Drug-Test Folly

Following my review of the Ventura County grand jury’s overly expensive 1989-90 report (color plates, non-recyclable paper and 123 pages printed only one side), my anger over the waste and my dismay over the shallowness and silliness of the entire report was tempered by the fact that the report was innocuous enough that it hurt no one. Therefore, I dismissed the whole episode as the usual waste of taxpayer dollars on an archaic body that had outlived its relevance to today’s society.

However, on July 18, the grand jury rekindled my anger with another of their poorly conceived and unseasoned conclusions. The grand jury with one stroke of their collective pens sought to trample the rights of workers to not have their privacy invaded by illegal “random drug tests.”

While they paint the picture of the public employees as a bunch of drug addicts, they also dismiss the efforts of all other people who work for a living. Quoting juror Ed Schuck: “The employees of course will object to random testing, but of course we are not talking about employees of gas stations, or shirt factories, or even auto factories.” I assume this means that gas station attendants, shirt factory and auto workers are not important people or their contribution and the product they produce is non-essential.

This lack of knowledge and insensitivity by the grand jury should be of concern to all citizens of Ventura County. Maybe it is time to seriously look at the function of the grand jury, who and how they are selected and do they contribute a function to society that matches the cost. My review of the 1989-90 report says to spend the $146,000 allocated to the grand jury on services to the citizens of Ventura County rather than a soapbox for gadflies.

BARRY L. HAMMITT

Ventura

Hammitt is executive director of the Public Employees Assn. of Ventura County.