ASHEVILLE HIGH STUDENTS ACQUIT SELVES QUITE NICELY
IN LAST WEEK'S DRUG SWEEP

The biggest and best news about the surprise drug sweep at Asheville
High last week is, well, that it isn'tbig news.

Two police K9 units, four Asheville City Schools resource officers,
administrators and two city managers from the Asheville Police
Department participated in the search, which covered common areas and
halls (including student lockers) and the parking lots at the school.

In other places, similar searches have, sadly, been big news. A search
at a high school in South Carolina went, in our opinion, far over the
line. It gave the nation shocking videos of students being handcuffed,
guns being held to their heads and a drug dog ripping away at book
bags. Nothing was found and no charges resulted, but a lawsuit did.

Nothing like that happened here.

Asheville City Schools superintendent Robert Logan said the sweep here
was intended to send a message: "Drugs are illegal, and as long as
drugs are illegal, we will do everything we can to keep them out of
our schools."

Happily, it turns out the students sent a message of their own: no
drugs were found.

Not to make too big a deal out this, but, well, right now we couldbe
making a big deal out of this. The authorities could have gotten out
of hand, or a haul of drugs could have been found.

We could have been writing a very different editorial
today.

We're happy we're not.