CAUGHT IN 'WAR'S' CROSSFIRE

Gil Kerlikowske, President Barack Obama's drug czar, recently told the
Wall Street Journal that the term "war on drugs" was outdated and he
wanted it terminated.

He said the fight against illegal drugs, started by President Richard
Nixon some 40 years ago, had failed. There are more people imprisoned
for drug offenses than any other crime, but prison has not stopped the
flow and use of illicit drugs. In fact, some people believe the
problem has gotten worse over the last few decades.

Drugs are still everywhere. Polls have revealed that children can gain
access to marijuana and other hard drugs faster and more readily than
they can alcohol and cigarettes. That is a problem that has to be
confronted from all directions.

But it was a different kind of drug problem when a 13-year-old
Safford, Arizona girl, Savana Redding, was forced to strip down to her
undergarments because school administrators believed she had -
according to the school's policy - illegally brought drugs to school.
School policy bans all drugs without permission from administrators in
advance. The drugs in the case happened to be ibuprofen.

In 2003, Redding was accused by a fellow student who was caught with
one naproxen pill and four ibuprofen pills. The student said Redding
had given her the pills - analgesics used to relieve mild pain, but
not usually abused by children.

The eighth-grader said she did not have any ibuprofen, but the
principal did not believe her. She allowed the assistant principal to
search her belongings. No drugs were found.

Assistant principal Kerry Wilson then decided Redding must have hidden
the pills somewhere. He sent her to the school nurse where she was
forced to remove her shirt and pants. Again, no drugs were discovered.

Still believing Redding had the pills stashed on her, Wilson had the
nurse and a female administrative assistant force the teen to pull her
bra and panties to the side - revealing her nude body - to show she
was not hiding the medicine.

Recently, the United States Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that Wilson had
violated the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches.
Calling what happened to Redding unreasonable is an
understatement.

Sure, schools have rules and policies in place and if anyone breaks
the rules, they deserve to be punished. Schools are for learning, not
to be a haven for drug peddling and use. If a policy is in place
prohibiting just the mere possession of a drug - even ibuprofen - and
a student possesses it, that student deserves a punishment fitting for
the crime.

Forcing a 13-year-old to strip - even if the assistant principal was
just smart enough to have a female assistant and nurse do the search -
does not fit this situation, a situation where no crime was committed.

Even if the search had found ibuprofen, the humiliation that Redding
was subjected to was beyond reasonable. Ibuprofen is not a subject of
the "war on drugs" and harsh tactics such as the school used aren't
called for. The Supreme Court ruling is a victory for common sense.