COURT SOFT ON DRUGS

Re "Top court sniffs out breach" (April 26)

Is it probable to assume that the Supreme Court of Canada is
reasonable? Well not if you expect them to be on anyone's side in the
war on drugs. The court has ruled that the use of a police dog is now
considered to be an illegal search unless the dog's handler has "legal
and probable" grounds to suspect that a person actually has drugs in
their possession. Mind you if an officer had this probable grounds
then police would not need a dog.

It seems the court doesn't really want to take a bite out of crime.
It's a person's right to walk around with as much illegal drugs as
they can carry concealed, according to the court. A very reasonable
judgment, if the court was run by a bunch of idiots. They certainly
have me wondering.

This now applies to many situations, like random school searches. As
Peterborough police Chief Terry McLaren states, this is not a big part
of the Peterborough K9 team's job. But it is a deterrent.

Are we as a society serious about the war on drugs? Because that's
exactly what it is, a war and currently the police are losing it
through no fault of their own. Kids can now bring anything they want
to school and store it in the school-owned locker. The police would
need actual reasonable and probable grounds to search.

I was surprised to read so many were in support of this (Have your
say, April 28). In a war, one has to take sides, and in the war on
drugs it's a no-brainer. One person interviewed for the Have Your Say
feature even went so far as to offer his "reasonable and probable"
opinion that "drugs" are no worse now in schools than when he went to
high school. I went to school in the 1980s. It's much worse now; as a
paramedic I know that to be a fact. We pick up all the overdosed kids.
It's pretty bad out there, and the Peterborough area is getting worse
by the day.

It's time we send a message to our MPs. A properly trained dog is
upwards of 95 per cent accurate at detecting even small amounts of
specific drugs. The dog, unlike a human, doesn't care what you look
like, what colour you are, how you talk, nor what social background
you come from. It just plays the "find the drug" game and usually all
it wants is a short play with its toy as a reward for a job well done.

When our paramedic team was coming back from Cambodia last year the
"fruit sniffing dog" at the Toronto airport caught two of our guys
with oranges in their backpacks. We never thought to complain to the
Supreme Court, though. I wish now we had, they might have given us our
fruit back.

MARK CAMERON

RR 11, Peterborough