your Aug. 18 issue. This news story may be

your Aug. 18 issue. This news story may be comforting to the general reader who has not examined the policy text itself

It should not be comforting to the board members themselves who are, or should be, privy to the facts of the current drug scene in the schools. There are no “specific penalties” in this or any other drug policy I have ever seen (if “specific" means “certain,” “fixed,” “explicit," or “definite,” as my dictionary tells me). Nor will there ever be a drug policy with “specific penalties” in this county, I should imagine and hope. But one never knows for sure here; we have a perpetual law — the LUV Taxation Ordinance — the very word “perpetual” used by the supervisors in enacting it! Specificity of penalties is not the problem or the cure. Faulty or lax inmplementation of our drug policies is our problem.

What do I actually mean by implementation of the policies, which spell out our intentions and requirements? After a drug policy has been adopted:

• That students are taught and understand what the policy says.

• That the entire staff, including teachers, understand it and have no mental reservations about carrying out their duties under it.

• That the school administrators, from the district superintendent down, themselves have no mental reservations about it and its enforcement.

• That all members of the school board give it wholehearted support, without mental reservations, once it has been adopted.

• That the sheriff and all elected and appointed officials in the county give the enforcement of it complete support, without reservations or evasion.

• Above all, that all parents of children in school adopt a “no compromise” position with regard to drugs for children, at home, in the schools and any place in between.

That is what I mean by implementation of drug policies. ,

Robert Ea8tham is a former member of the county school board. He served as Wakefield District’s representative from 1980-83.