Cite as: 520 U. S. 305 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
entation is any indication of a concrete danger demanding departure from the Fourth Amendment's main rule.
Nothing in the record hints that the hazards respondents broadly describe are real and not simply hypothetical for Georgia's polity. The statute was not enacted, as counsel for respondents readily acknowledged at oral argument, in response to any fear or suspicion of drug use by state officials:
"QUESTION: Is there any indication anywhere in this record that Georgia has a particular problem here with State officeholders being drug abusers? "[COUNSEL FOR RESPONDENTS]: No, there is no such evidence, [and] to be frank, there is no such problem as we sit here today." Tr. of Oral Arg. 32.
See also id., at 31 (counsel for respondents affirms absence of evidence that state officeholders in Georgia have drug problems). A demonstrated problem of drug abuse, while not in all cases necessary to the validity of a testing regime, see Von Raab, 489 U. S., at 673-675, would shore up an assertion of special need for a suspicionless general search program. Proof of unlawful drug use may help to clarify—and to substantiate—the precise hazards posed by such use. Thus, the evidence of drug and alcohol use by railway employees engaged in safety-sensitive tasks in Skinner, see 489 U. S., at 606-608, and the immediate crisis prompted by a sharp rise in students' use of unlawful drugs in Vernonia, see 515 U. S., at 662-663, bolstered the Government's and school officials' arguments that drug-testing programs were warranted and appropriate.
In contrast to the effective testing regimes upheld in Skinner, Von Raab, and Vernonia, Georgia's certification requirement is not well designed to identify candidates who violate antidrug laws. Nor is the scheme a credible means to deter illicit drug users from seeking election to state office. The test date—to be scheduled by the candidate anytime within
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