For a reader from Santa Cruz, Calif., to respond to a letter from Hartford, Conn., in a local newspaper in the middle of the Bible Belt is indeed a modern-day miracle. I do hope you can find the space to continue this dialogue as I have a rebuttal to his comments.

No, Mr. Lane, I am not a fascist. I am simply a grandmother who happens to love her grandchildren (and yes, your children as well) more than my privacy. And I do not believe that our privacy rights were meant to shield criminal behavior. And the last I knew, using and selling illegal, mind-altering drugs fell into the category of crime. Why is a drug test more an infringement on the student's privacy than a school nurse checking for head lice, pink eye, scoliosis and any number of contagions? We all know that peer pressure is the greatest of all contagions and certainly we know how insidious addiction is. Is it the "sin" thing again? How sinful of us to care more about our embarrassment and pride than our children.

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From Hope Rice, Enfield Conn.:

After a recent trip to Conway, I have not been able to get the remarks from a parent of a high-school girl out of my mind, when she expressed how adamantly opposed she is to random drug testing for her teen-ager. So adamant that she would not allow her daughter to participate in extracurricular activity.

I am frustrated that "perfect parents" who are raising "ideal" children would wish to prevent a safety net for other children who may be more typical in today's culture than we like to admit. If the perfect parent's ideal child is not experimenting with drugs, how in the world, other than a slight inconvenience, could this be a problem for her? Instead of guarding your privacy rights, would it not be more compassionate to teach your child to care more for their peers who may be making some bad decisions, and identify them as soon as possible before they become another statistic.

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