SCHOOL CONDUCTING RANDOM DRUG SEARCHES

The first random drug search of lockers at Eagle Butte High School in
Dunmore has produced some favourable results for the school's administration.

Robert Faith, principal at Eagle Butte High School won't disclose any
specific information about the random searches, but said that everybody is
pleasantly surprised by the findings.

"I will leave it at that, but I am not naive enough to think that out of
450 plus students, none are using drugs," said Faith.

Eagle Butte High School has hired a Fort Macleod canine services company
that specializes in drug searches to conduct the random drug searches of
the lockers. According to Faith, the dogs are trained to detect a wide
variety of illegal drugs.

While Faith would not say whether drugs have been a problem at the school
in the past, he did say the decision to conduct the searches was a
proactive effort by the school.

"We are making a statement to the students through our administration, and
our student and parent councils that we will not allow drugs coming into
our school," he said.

"In our society, there are more concerns about drug use among our young
people. There is more visibility and questions arise about drugs coming
into our schools. We can't dictate what our kids are doing on evenings and
weekends, but we can do something about it during school hours," Faith said.

The ultimate goal of the random searches is to have no drugs detected at
all by the dogs. The positive results of the last search indicate that the
school is well on its way to achieving that objective.

"We are not going to solve all of the problems of the world by doing this,
but we can help things by doing the searches," Faith said.

Several more random drug searches at Eagle Butte High School are being
planned for sometime during the remainder of the school year.