DOCTORS CAN'T PLAY COPS

The use of illegal drugs is both a crime and a medical problem, and
much of the debate about the so-called "war on drugs" focuses on
whether the medical or the legal model should guide public policy.

But one thing is clear after an enlightened decision this week by the
U.S. Supreme Court: Under the guise of treatment, hospitals may not
gather evidence for the police without triggering Fourth Amendment
protections against "unreasonable searches and seizures."

By a 6-3 vote, the high court reversed a lower-court decision holding
that a Charleston, S.C., public hospital was free to obtain urine
samples from pregnant women participating in a program, and then turn
evidence of cocaine use over to police. The program had the admirable
intention of dealing with the problem of "crack babies."

A lower court still must wrestle with the question of whether the
women in the program at the Medical University of South Carolina
consented to having their urine tested for cocaine. But the 4th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled that consent wasn't necessary,
even though hospital officials were acting in league with law
enforcement officials

Initially, women in the program who tested positive were reported to
the police and then arrested. Later, the policy was changed to create
a sort of good cop/bad cop system in which women could avoid
prosecution if they entered drug rehabilitation. Either way, hospital
personnel were acting as auxiliary police officers - but not
complying with the Fourth Amendment.

That was unacceptable, wrote Justice John Paul Stevens in his
majority opinion. Although the court in some cases has approved
warrantless police searches under a "special needs" exception, that
exception didn't apply to the South Carolina program.

"While the ultimate goal of the program may well have been to get the
women in question into substance abuse treatment and off of drugs,"
he wrote, "the immediate objective of the searches was to generate
evidence for law enforcement purposes."

Had the court ruled otherwise, the "special needs" exception would
have swallowed the rule that police must have probable cause, or at
least reasonable suspicion, to violate an individual's privacy.

Whether drug abusers should be viewed primarily as patients or as
criminal suspects is a policy question that must be settled in the
political process. But when government officials are looking for
evidence that could lead to criminal punishment, they must follow the
rules - whether they wear a policeman's blue uniform or a doctor's
white coat.

- - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette