Government employees with law enforcement responsibilities in American Samoa are likely to be subjected to mandatory drug testing.
American Samoa's governor Togiola Tulafono said on his radio show that he's concerned with the growing incident of government employees who have been implicated, or charged with possession of drugs.
He said he hoped that before the end of the year a law would be in place to require police, customs, immigration and agricultural quarantine officers to be subjected to drug testing.
Our correspondent, Monica Miller, says there is widespread public support for the drug testing of government workers:
"The majority opinion would be that a government job is a privilege and whoever gets a government job should abide by government regulations. So while i do believe that there would be some expression of concern over privacy issues I think the majority would say that this is needed because we have a problem."
Monica Miller says drug testing programmes are already used at the American Samoa Power Authority and at the hospital.
