WHAT A SCHMUCK!

There are typically two ways to do anything - the good way and the bad
way. Interestingly enough, when illegal drugs are involved, the police
typically seem to pick the bad way.

Take recent activity in Goose Creek, S.C. Stratford High School's
administration, including principal George McCrackin, believed there
was a large marijuana trafficking ring in the school.

The good way to handle this scenario, "Finding drugs in a suburban
high school," would be a couple of police officers to bring in a dog,
which should then sniff around. Officers might open up a locker for a
peek and either arrest some students or, finding nothing, go home and
think, "I bet some teachers were over-reacting, and there really
wasn't anything going on."

Of course, the police chose to do things the bad way. Fourteen
officers, with guns drawn, stormed into a hallway in the school where,
according to one of the officers, a lot of drug activity takes place.

They immediately yelled for all students to get down on the ground,
with their hands behind their backs. Officers forcibly handcuffed any
students who wouldn't comply with the absolutely ridiculous situation.

Then they brought in the dogs, who walked up and down the hallway. We
bet you can't guess how much dope the canine officers detected. Give
up? None. Not one ounce, gram, dime bag or joint. Although, and this
is certainly encouraging for their efforts, the dogs did supposedly
smell marijuana on 12 of the students' backpacks.

Lest you think that this recount is some trumped-up attack on the
inherently noble and otherwise effective war on drugs, visit
www.ksat.com/news/260644/detail.html, where you can watch the school
surveillance video yourself.

"I was just upset knowing they had guns put to their head and a canine
was barking at them and about to bite somebody," Latonia Simmons, a
parent of a Stratford High student, said. "It was just awful."

McCrackin doesn't think so, however.

"The volume and amount of marijuana coming into the school is
unacceptable," he said in an interview after the police hadn't found
any drugs anywhere in the school.