SNIFFING FOR DRUGS CAN'T TRUMP RIGHTS

Illegal drug use is a serious problem among young people of
high-school age, and even in middle school, but that doesn't mean
police should be able to march into schools and set their sniffer
dogs loose on random searches. Like anyone else, young people have
rights. They don't check those rights at the front door of the
schools, or leave them to the principal's discretion to defend.

Zero tolerance for drugs, the policy of the Sarnia, Ont., high school
in question, does not justify the random search that took place five
years ago, a search whose constitutionality is being debated today in
front of the Supreme Court of Canada. If anything, the search shows
where zero-tolerance zealotry leads: to a mindless abrogation of rights.

How mindless? While school authorities have the lawful right to
search their students, the Sarnia principal simply delegated his
authority, giving blanket permission to the police essentially to
lock down the school. When the police showed up, the school detained
all students in their classrooms for 11/2 to two hours. The
atmosphere could only have been oppressive. The students were under
the control of the enforcement arm of the state. Every student was
implicated in the search. All lost their freedom of movement. This
was not a trivial loss.

The police were eventually directed to the gymnasium, where a sniffer
dog began sniffing backpacks left on the floor. Backpacks aren't
private, claimed the Crown. Oh really? Would state officials feel the
same way if a police dog went sniffing around their briefcases in
their offices? "A student's backpack is in effect a portable bedroom
and study rolled into one," the Criminal Lawyers' Association pointed
out. The students have no choice but to be in school; they need a
backpack to carry their books and effects; and the police are poking
their dogs' noses into their private space. How could a random search
in these circumstances fail to generate resentment? How could the
students fail to be disturbed at their powerlessness and loss of privacy?

Compare the case with another one in front of the Supreme Court
today, involving an individual at a Calgary bus station. In that
case, police felt they had reasonable grounds to suspect that the man
was a drug courier, partly because the name on his ticket differed
from the one on his identification. When officers sniffed (without
the help of a dog) around the bag corresponding to the false name on
the ticket, they smelled fabric softener, which is sometimes used to
cover the smell of drugs. They then searched the bag, and found a
large quantity of drugs. If all the adults at the bus station had
been detained and searched, there would have been a constitutional uproar.

Yes, the dog at the Sarnia school turned up some marijuana and "magic
mushrooms" in a backpack. That discovery wasn't worth turning the
school over to police control, and denying young people their rights.