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Mid-Pac could be lab
for drug testing

THE ISSUE Mid-Pacific Institute has decided to initiate voluntary drug testing of its students.

TWO years after considering mandatory drug testing of students, Mid-Pacific Institute has chosen a voluntary program to begin this fall. Some parents are troubled even with that, but it should provide results indicating whether voluntary testing would be worthwhile in public schools.

City Prosecutor Peter Carlisle, whose son attends Mid-Pacific, has supported drug testing, proposing in the past that all public high school students be tested at the opening of the school year and that random tests of one-fourth of the students be taken through the remainder of the year. However, mandatory testing has been struck down in courts as unconstitutional in public schools.

Mid-Pacific had planned to begin the program in January but delayed it after some parents objected. Lerisa Heroldt, the mother of two students at the school, calls the program a "snake-oil approach" that is not scientifically proven, and predicts it will be detrimental.

The only students to be tested will be those who consent, along with their parents. Urine samples will be tested at an independent laboratory, and the results will be sent directly to parents. School officials will not be informed about individual test results.

The Mid-Pacific program is patterned after a program at San Clemente High School in California. Jon Hamro, the vice principal at San Clemente, told Mid-Pacific in September that fewer than half the students submit to testing and 6 percent tested positive, less than expected.

University of Michigan social scientists found in a national survey two years ago that 37 percent of high school seniors at schools where they were tested for drugs reported to have smoked marijuana, compared with 36 percent at school without drug tests.

Mid-Pacific should survey its students before the end of the current school year, then take a similar survey next year. That should provide a clear picture of the program's effectiveness.

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Hawaii is denied
fluoride benefits

THE ISSUE The state Senate has shelved a bill that would have prohibited counties from adding fluoride to drinking water.

FLUORIDATION of water has provided most Americans with the safest and most economical protection against tooth decay, but paranoid activism has denied that benefit to most Hawaii residents. The state House has approved a bill that would prohibit counties from providing that protection, but the Senate has wisely shelved the measure. More education is needed not only to repel such efforts but to put forth the reasons for adding small amounts of fluoride to the state's drinking water.

Hawaii and Utah are the only states where less than 10 percent of the population has access to tap water containing fluoride additives; such water is available only on military bases in Hawaii. As a result, the state's children have the highest rate of tooth decay in the nation.

Opponents of fluoride insist that Hawaii's water be kept "pure." However, fluoride is naturally present in all water. Fluoridation merely increases its level to that recommended for dental health -- about one tablespoon for every 4,000 gallons.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control has called fluoridation one of the 10 great public health achievements of the 20th century. It has the endorsement of the World Health Organization, the American Dental Association, the American Medical Association, their Hawaii chapters and virtually every medical or dental organization of any repute.

As a result, more than two-thirds of all Americans drink water with optimal fluoride levels for preventing tooth decay. An economic analysis has shown that in most communities, every dollar invested in fluoridation saves $38 or more in treatment costs.

"Fluoridation is the single most effective public health measure to prevent tooth decay and improve oral health over a lifetime," says Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona.

Ultraconservatives who once claimed that fluoridation was a communist plot to poison Americans now claim that it carries risks of cancer and osteoporosis. Thorough studies have shown no evidence of such risks.