LET THE DOGS OUT

Our View: Schools Need To Make Good Use Of Every Tool Possible To Fight The
War On Drugs

We've heard and read about the war on drugs so often that there is a
tendency sometimes to tune out the message. And it is this: Despite all of
our efforts, drugs remain a scourge in our neighborhoods and schools.

There is an idea being pursued aggressively by one school district as it
aggressively deals with the threat. Other districts ought to take heed,
though the idea is a controversial one.

Central Bucks is planning to hire a Texas-based company whose specialty is
sniffing out illegal substances - literally sniffing them out using highly
trained dogs.

The district's plan has stirred controversy on two fronts. One involves the
constitutional rights of the students whose lockers might be "sniffed" and
subsequently searched. The other has to do with the hiring of an
out-of-state firm vs. using local police canines and the differing
philosophies of the county's two district attorney candidates about funding
drug sweeps in the schools.

District Attorney Diane Gibbons is against using drug forfeiture funds to
reimburse local police for the canine searches, calling such searches
ineffective and likening them to using "storm troopers" to shut down a
school "like it was a prison." (During the searches students must be kept
away from the police dogs because the animals can become aggressive, and
the searches take several hours.) She also worries about violating the
students' constitutional rights.

Her opponent, Terry Houck, said if elected he'll reinstate the drug sweeps
with local dogs and said the school district should not have to bring in an
outside firm to do a job the local authorities should be doing.

The school district is steering clear of the politics of the matter. Its
motivation for hiring Texas-based Interquest Detection Canines is
practical. Superintendent N. Robert Laws said employing a private firm
gives the district the flexibility to perform searches whenever it wants,
for about $200 a search. That's not a lot of money.

What's more, canine handler Stephanie Kramer said Trese, the golden
retriever that will be roaming the halls of schools, is both highly
specialized (besides illegal drugs the dog can detect the odor of gunpowder
and sometimes-abused medications such as Ritalin) and very friendly. That
latter quality means students won't have to be confined to their classrooms
the whole time Trese is in the building.

The matter of students' civil rights is necessarily an important concern.
But students have no right to possess illegal substances of any kind. Using
dogs to search out such substances can be done in a way that passes muster
with the courts. Laws said the hope is always that such searches turn up
nothing. "It's about reminding kids that someone is watching."

Some kids need such reminders, and schools that choose to offer them are to
be applauded. Criticism should be reserved for those schools that would
rather ignore their drug problems.

If districts are presented with a more effective, more economical proposal
for searching schools for drugs, by all means it should be considered. In
the meantime, let the politicians wrangle.

A district's decision to move ahead on its own speaks well of its concern
for its students.