Drug-sniffing dogs can work, if handled right

Intent and consequences.

Good policy-making is all about making sure the latter matches the former
as closely as possible.

Sending a locker-sniffing dog out on regular school patrols in an effort to
keep them drug-free is, on the surface a good idea.

It will, however, be bad policy, if the school board doesn't take serious
steps to minimize any unintended consequences.

Regardless of one's personal feeling about drugs, most would agree they
have no place in schools.

The school board's drug use policy is a good one - strict, yet
compassionate and clearly defined: Use drugs and you will be suspended; Use
them repeatedly and you will be expelled until you demonstrate you have
sought and received treatment.

Sending in Gator will both increase the district's ability to enforce the
policy and deter students from flouting it.

That said, other potential consequences must be minimized before a good
idea becomes good policy.

First of all, the presence of the police dog should not automatically mean
the legal system should take a hand in dealing with those caught.

How many of you experimented with drugs and backed off on your own before
they became a problem? Would you have been better off being caught and charged?

Secondly, it should be clearly shown that Gator is working in a public
place in response to an obvious public problem.

Otherwise, it would be too easy for impressionable teens to conclude that
it is all right for police to invade personal space without reasonable and
probable grounds.

The school district hardly wants to be contributing to raising a generation
of fascists. And it wants to be building young lives, not ruining them.

There are some good reasons for sending Gator into our schools.

It's incumbent on our trustees to make sure that it addresses the good
reasons not to.