SUPREME COURT GOT IT RIGHT; LOCAL SCHOOL BOARD AGREES WITH DECISION

The head of the local Catholic school board said the Supreme Court of
Canada got it right when it ruled Friday that a random drug search at
a Sarnia high school was unlawful.

"You have to look at the larger issue regarding the individual rights
of society . . . Their privacy (was) infringed on," Paul Wubben said
after the top court ruled on the legitimacy of a police search at St.
Patrick's high school.

In a decision with far-reaching implications, the Supreme Court of
Canada ruled 6-3 to uphold a lower court decision that found the Nov.
7, 2002 search unlawful.

High school students were confined to their classrooms for about two
hours as police officers, with the aid of a drug-sniffing dog,
conducted a random search of the school without a warrant.

They eventually found 10 bags of marijuana and 10 magic mushrooms
concealed in a student's backpack that was laying among a group of
other backpacks in the gymnasium.

A student identified as A.M. was charged with possession for the
purpose of trafficking.

Calls requesting an interview with A.M., who no longer lives in
Sarnia, were not returned Friday.

An earlier Ontario Court of Appeal decision backed a judgment by
provincial court Justice Mark Hornblower in Sarnia that the search
violated the Charter of Rights protection against unreasonable searches.

"There is something to be said that individual rights aren't eroded
in a post 9/11 world," said Wubben, education director of the St.
Clair Catholic District School Board.

Friday's decision won't affect the board's drug policy because random
searches haven't taken place since the lower court ruling, he said.

"When push comes to shove, I have a responsibility to make sure kids
are safe . . . but I won't be Draconian about it."

Gayle Stucke, education director for the Lambton Kent District School
Board, said routine drug searches were a valuable tool for the board.

"They were held routinely, once a year," she said. "We saw value to
it . . . but we have since stopped the practice."

Phil Nelson, Deputy Chief of the Sarnia Police Service, said the
decision was disappointing because it strips officers of one more
weapon in the fight against drugs.

"It's frustrating for us because our prime objective is to keep drugs
out of the schools and off the streets," he said. "It just becomes
that much more labour intensive."

Searches are still conducted in local schools, but they aren't random
or without reasonable grounds. A sweep of SCITS and St. Patrick's in
April 2005 resulted in 21 students being arrested and charged with
drug offences.