AWARENESS WAS LACKING

It's hard to know what to make - if much at all - about the Victoria
police department misplacing one of its "drug-awareness" kits. We can
applaud the police department for confessing that this happened,
although we wonder why it took four months.

It's also puzzling that the police, renowned for detailed paperwork,
wouldn't require that the kits be signed out. The department is now
working on such a protocol and won't let the remaining kit out of the
police building until that's in place.

Why the police had to use actual samples of drugs, rather than models,
is another mystery. Maybe it's cheaper to use the real thing - even if
the estimated value of the misplaced drugs is $1,500 to $2,000.

As far as scandals go, this is pretty modest. It was far more
troubling when a decommissioned Victoria police revolver ended up in
the hands of a gang member on the Mainland a few years ago.

That isn't to say that such a quantity of drugs doesn't pose a danger.
It's about the same as if the police had a poison-control awareness
kit -containing deadly household chemicals such as drain-cleaner and
ammonia- and misplaced it. One wouldn't want to see a chunk of heroin
end up in the mouth of a curious child.

In all likelihood, the contents of the drug kit are gone for good,
either thrown away or consumed by someone who's already developed a
taste for that sort of thing. Then again, they might just be sitting
where they were last left.