PRISON DRUG DETECTOR SHUT OFF AFTER INNOCENT VISITORS BARRED

VICTORIA -- Prison officials have suspended use of a high-tech drug
detection machine after it falsely indicated speed and ecstacy residues on
a woman in her 80s who wanted to visit her inmate grandson.

Patricia Lockhart, assistant warden at William Head Institution, said
yesterday the medium-security prison's ion scanner itemizer will be shut
down until it is inspected by the Manitoba-based manufacturer.

Three of the eight people turned away at the prison gates last weekend
because drugs were detected said they cleaned their hands and eyeglasses
with chlorine-coated wipes before being tested by the machine, she said.

The elderly woman was one of the people who said she wiped her hands with
the chlorine product, Lockhart said.

"Until further research is conducted on products such as chlorine wipes and
this problem is resolved, use of the [ion scanner] itemizer has been
suspended at William Head Institution," Lockhart said.

"We will be talking to the manufacturer about the chlorine wipes, because
it is odd three people would mention it."

Michael Jackson, a law professor at the University of British Columbia and
a corrections expert, said the drug detection machine is a heavy-handed
weapon in the war against drugs.

Used responsibly, it can point prison officials to potential drug
smugglers, but it shouldn't be used as a tool to immediately deny visits,
he said.

"In the war against drugs one of the casualties is fairness. This is the
latest example of that," said Jackson, who recently published a book on
Canada's prisons, Justice Behind the Walls: Human Rights in Canadian Prisons.

He said the zero-tolerance drug policy at William Head needs a human touch
to become more fair. At many of Canada's federal prisons a positive ion
scanner test first prompts an interview by a prison official who then
decides whether to halt a visit or allow it to proceed, Jackson said.

Jackson said he's received letters from women who feel they have been
labelled drug dealers because a machine has sensed something they have
never had contact with.

"To a woman, they tell me about being traumatized, humiliated, ashamed," he
said. "The lengths which they scrub themselves . . . they put their clothes
in plastic bags and only wear them to prison."

Lockhart said every visitor or volunteer entering William Head was subject
to an ion scan or a search by a drug-sniffing dog.

Visitors detected for drugs are denied their visit, but are eligible to see
a visits review board that meets twice weekly.