DRUG SEIZURE MADE HIGH SCHOOL RAID WORTHWHILE

I suppose that the next commentary from Steven J. Day should be entitled
"Safe Highways Act is a way to forego driver's rights" as he takes aim at
those roadside RIDE programs that the police set up.

So many of us are "subjected to random interruption" in our traveling
environment for a crack down of less than one per cent of drivers.

I think that Day has the same mental attitude as those five others that
thought they would take their chances. It seems that those five are a few
grams short of a full load.

Any amount of drugs seized makes the exercise worth it. Those students, as
well as any other individual who chooses to sell drugs is well aware of the
impact that getting caught will have on their lives, now and in the future.

The students who voluntarily surrendered their drugs knew what would happen
if they held on to them and were subsequently caught with them. Zero
tolerance does work.

Further on in his commentary, Day's illogical thinking continues to baffle me.

He refers to the raid across the street one week earlier and stated that
students still brought drugs to school and how that raid did not deter the
drug dealers.

Well my guess is that if another raid was to be held in January that even
fewer students would hold onto their drugs and take a chance of getting
caught and that even fewer would choose to bring them into the school after
that.

Those five will have their day in court; let them argue that they were not
in possession of an illegal substance. The moment that someone -- anyone --
chooses to undertake an illegal act, whether it be selling drugs, driving
after drinking too much, stealing, etc., then they have "checked their
rights at the door".

As a parent of two children who attended Banting I would never balk at such
an action being taken. Nor would I every consider stooping to the U.S.
mentality (as Steven J. Day seems to extol) of launching a lawsuit. The
only winners are lawyers. Keep up the "joint operations," keep up the
roadside RIDE program, keep up the pursuit of those who willingly choose to
break the laws of our lands.

Ian M. Duff, Everett