"DRUG-FREE ZONE" QUESTIONED

Giving kids a buffer zone to "just be kids" seems well intentioned enough
but surrounding the school (some schools and not others) with a "drug-free
zone" is to some critics, not only arbitrary and unusual it has no legal
validity.

The area surrounding Perley Elementary and Grand Forks Secondary has been
declared such a zone, and Sgt. Daryl Little of the local RCMP detachment
makes no apologies for the harsh treatment of transgressors caught within it.

"Are the penalties tough?" Little says regarding the treatment of a recent
case involving a young offender. "Damn right they are."

But a number of lawyers and the father of a young offender caught by a
teacher with an illegal substance contend that the drug-free zone is not
only an arbitrary designation and not only does it constitute cruel and
unusual punishment, it doesn't even have legal validity or relevance.

"It is a frightening idea that special interest groups can come up with
these ideas and then have the police subscribe to them," says the father of
the young offender who cannot be named. "The police are becoming the moral
arbiters of what we do and I really have a problem with that...The
punishment meted out already was more than adequate. Putting this in front
of a judge was ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous."

The case heard in Grand Forks court this summer involved a young offender
who was caught in school with a pot brownie. The marijuana content in the
brownie - despite being an almost insignificant amount - was then
considered a possession issue but according to the individual's father,
even the judge in the case was baffled by the Crown's zeal in pursuing a
strong conviction.

"The judge was obviously on my side," the father says.

The Crown prosecutor was sticking to his guns, says the father, but the
judge then asked the Crown prosecutor if he had a "de minimus defense," in
other words, a dismissable quantity. The judge apparently asked the lawyer
to drop it three times.

In the end the young offender faced a conditional sentence and six months
probation. That of course is on top of the punishment meted out by the
school, not to mention by his embarrassed parents.

He was given a one-week suspension, prohibited from extra-curricular
activities until the end of the year, given drug and alcohol counselling
and then when mom and dad got through with him, he was grounded, had his
allowance eliminated and was forced to do extra work. "He couldn't play
rugby or go to school dances," the father says.

The laundry list of punishment inflicted on the young offender for the
miniscule amount of marijuana angers and baffles his father to no end.

"As far as the drug-free zone goes, statutes are made by legislature, not
by police departments and school districts. This drug-free zone has no
legal validity. It has none," he says.

Local lawyer Peter Somerville agrees.

"The school district and the police are arbitrarily designating an area as
drug-free," Somerville says. "Does the issue concern me? Yes, the
controlled Drugs and Substances Act section 10(2)(a)(iii) states that a
relevant aggravating factor in sentencing includes a person who traffics or
possesses for the purpose of trafficking a substance in or near a school or
on or near school grounds not simple possession of marijuana."

Somerville negotiated with the Crown on behalf of the young offender who
was without a lawyer at the time. Somerville is concerned about the
school, the police and the Crown acting in cahoots to force the issue of
doubling fines in an arbitrarily designated area.

"Is there legal validity?" Somerville asks. "Good question. Where does
the school district and RCMP derive authority to arbitrarily designate an
area outside of school property as drug-free?

"My guess is that young offenders in the drug-free zone are treated harsher
than adults in criminal court."

Little doesn't disagree with that sentiment.

"You know what? You make some bad choices. They've got to learn," Little
says. "It was a bad choice to make. Did he receive a harsher penalty than
an adult would have in criminal court? Probably."

The B.C. Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) criticized the idea of
drug-free zones in their 2000 Annual Report stating that the way police and
school officials have sold the idea by stating anyone caught in the zone
would face double and triple the penalties has no relevance in our legal
system.

According to the report, there are no such allowances to increase penalties
in that way.

Under the section of the BCCLA report entitled Brickbats & Bouquets where
they list the best defenders of, and the worst offenders against, civil
liberties, high schools around the province received a Brickbat for
creating drug-free zones.

A constitutional lawyer in Vancouver (who had never heard of drug-free
zones until talking with the Gazette) also found the concept strange and
without merit.

"There is no discretion on the part of an officer to dictate penalties,"
says Ronald A. Skolrood of Lawson Lundell Lawson & McIntosh. "The
sentencing judge has some leniency but that range is set by the criminal
code. They (the police) don't have unilateral discretion to do that. That
is an issue for the legislature and the sentencing judge."

But Sgt. Little does not contend that there is any legal validity to the
drug-free zone, only that it is an extenuating circumstance that the RCMP
hope a judge will take into account.

"There is no legal validity," Little says. "What it does is allow the
judges to hear about the circumstances. Courts are independent and we
respect that. That is the foundation of our democratic system. It is
their decision. We don't say, 'You have to double the penalty.' We would
like the judges to listen to this."

A couple of Grand Forks residents are currently facing drug charges within
the drug-free zone. Rodney Douglas Matkovich and Mary Elizabeth Beguette
face growing and possession charges and will appear in Rossland court on
Oct. 24. The house where the two were arrested is on 13th Street across
from Perley Elementary.