On average, substance abuse consumes 13 percent of state budgets; in California, it is 16 percent. According to the state's attorney general, if one adds lost productivity, the impact of alcohol and other drug addiction on California taxpayers exceeds $32 billion per year, not to mention the dramatic loss of life and adverse impact on society. There is no area of state or federal government where greater savings are possible, in dollars and lives.

According to federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drug overdose deaths exceed 30,000 per year. Drugs kill roughly 2,500 Americans every week and cost taxpayers approximately $200 billion per annum. Include alcohol, and the cost is more like $500 billion.

Our nation is focused on terrorism abroad, but we have a much greater problem here at home, and we need to treat it as an epidemic, or war, and deal with it much more efficiently. To that end there are two things that I believe would enhance Join Together's "Blueprint for the States."

Organization Structure
If all states had a Director of Drug Control Policy reporting to the governor, who also served on a national advisory board led by the director of the federal Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDC), you would then tie state efforts together with the federal government's effort to deal more effectively with this problem on a consistent, universal basis. State directors could in turn provide local communities with something akin to a franchise, with financial support for doing what works.

Historically, national drug policy has suggested that local communities are best able to identify and deal with the problem of alcohol and other drug abuse. That is patently wrong, horribly inefficient, and imposes on the masses the necessity to try to understand and deal with a complex problem that is universal in nature and confronts all communities. Arguably, the federal drug czar is in the best position of anyone to have access to the science, policies and programs that are most effective in dealing with drugs and substance abuse.

Mandated Drug Testing
We cannot continue to spend 99 percent of our resources on the painful aftermath of the problem and only 1 percent on prevention, and expect a different result. 

Non-punitive random drug testing is the best tool we have to prevent substance use and abuse and get kids to adulthood intact, where science says they should never have a problem with drugs. Almost all addiction starts with kids, so if the answer to cutting the level of substance abuse is to protect the kids. If we protect the kids, we will protect the nation. 

In the absence of a federal mandate to screen all middle- and high-school students, governors of individual states would do well to consider a statewide mandate to protect their own. States shoulder most of the economic burden for the problem. Even if politically sensitive, the results from universal, non-punitive random drug testing for all students would be so astounding in terms of saved lives, dollars and creation of productive young people that in short order all parents and taxpayers would demand this protection.

In California, $7 million would cover the cost to drug-test all middle- and high-school students, and could save taxpayers $15 to $16 billion every year even if it just cut the problem in half. That is a realistic expectation based on the historic success of random drug testing.

The question is, is there a governor with the political courage, wisdom and leadership ability to implement random drug testing across the board?  Find one, and others will follow.

Editor's Note: Roger Morgan is the co-founder of Californians for Drug-Free Schools.

Roger Morgan
Californians For Drug-Free Schools
5771 Sweetwater Road
Bonita, CA  91902
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