DRUG-SNIFFING DOGS CHECK SCHOOLS

VANCOUVER (CP) - Plenty of grads in rented tuxes and poufy gowns
sailed through Jennifer Antak's high school prom blissfully high on
ecstacy this year.

And on regular school days, drug dealers on school grounds can be a
"little scary" and there's sometimes peer pressure to get high, says
the 18-year-old.

So if her school district in Abbotsford, an hour east of Vancouver,
wants to combat the problem by giving drug-sniffing dogs a whiff of
student lockers, Antak says that's just fine with her.

Good thing, because if the district school board has its way, it will
join several others across Canada who have embraced aggressive drug
strategies that include drug-sniffing police dogs in schools.

"We want the message to be: We mean business here," says school
trustee chair Joanne Field, who will vote on whether to pass the new
policy in September.

The policy would allow school officials to conduct random searches of
students and school property, and dogs would be brought in about six
times a year to randomly search hallways and lockers.

Students caught with illegal substances would face a range of
punishments, from a few days' suspension to police referral.
Rehabilitation programs would also be made available.

Critics say measures like these effectively create a police-state
inside learning institutions filled with kids.

"I would suggest we don't want to take a war-on-drugs mentality
that's clearly failed in the United States," says Murray Mollard,
executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.

School districts need to leave law enforcement to the police, he says,
adding zealous enforcement could compromise students' privacy rights
and false accusations due to canine error.

"Do they really want to saddle a young person with a criminal record
for a fairly minor offence?" he says.

The attitude that drugs are relatively harmless frustrates police
officers like Cpl. Scott Rintoul, a drug awareness officer.

He says the days when rebels smoked cigarettes in the john and toked
up on mild doobies are long gone.

He's arrested ambivalent teens high on meth and ecstasy, regularly
seized hard drugs at high school dances, and says that by Grade 10,
"it is not surprising to see (teens) being involved with cocaine,
methamphetamines and ecstacy."