'SNEAKY, VERY SNEAKY'

They agreed it was sneaky, but passengers waiting for the Nanaimo ferry
were split on whether or not police should have been allowed to prowl the
decks with pot-sniffing dogs.

"It was sneaky - very sneaky. And if they had given people some warning
they were doing it, it would have been all right," said Christie Allen, 29.

"I guess they know now that police are going to do that, so I think it is OK."

"No, no," said her travelling companion, Oliver Flaser, 33.

"I think it is wrong. It is an infringement of your rights. The police
were stepping way over the line. We still have a right to privacy."

"That's right," said Surrey's Mark Price, 49, as he sat a few cars farther
up the line, waiting for the sailing from Horseshoe Bay to Nanaimo.

"The next thing, they will be saying they can put a camera in my house to
see if I am doing something illegal.

"I'm not. And I don't have any drugs in the car."

But Price's wife, Caroline, argued that the ferry is an extension of the
highway and police had a right to pull people over to check to see if they
had been drinking.

Malcolm Aikman, who is retired, joked that the only drugs he was carrying
was a pack of cigarettes.

"But if someone is stupid enough to transport drugs, then they should be
arrested," said Aikman.

Kwantlen University College students Lauren Corlette and Amber Knight, both
22, were in the middle of discussing the issue.

"I don't think it is fair to do that," Corlette said.

"They should give people the choice of whether or not they were willing to
have their car searched before they got on the ferry. They don't go
bursting into people's homes without a search warrant."

"But if people are transporting an illegal drug," Knight argued, "they have
to expect that police will be trying to catch them.

"You have your bags checked at airports. And drugs are illegal."