Waging the ‘War Against Drugs’: Agencies Still Haven’t Got It Right

* Bravo to the Huntington Beach High School students who recently protested in front of that school and before the school board about the district’s new policy of allowing police to use drug-sniffing dogs to search their lockers, cars and book bags without probable cause.

This police-state policy is a clear violation of the United States Constitution and smells a lot more like a public relations scam than a real attempt to help people who abuse drugs. The taxpayers hard-earned dollars would be much better spent on educating students about drugs and (educating) school and police administrators about the Constitution.

The current “anti-drug” program is a notch above the past policy of placing undercover police officers on campus to befriend and then pressure students into supplying them drugs. Still, by focusing on students, but not subjecting teachers and administrators to the same treatment, the repulsive act of locker-sniffing, like entrapment, adds to the constitutional rights violation a fundamental insult to the integrity of all students.

Furthermore, citizens of all ages should be frightened by remarks made by some police spokespersons that the only students likely to protest the program are those who have something to hide. These McCarthyite remarks presume that a person is guilty until proven innocent and seem designed to stifle dissent.

The silver lining is that at least some students seem to have learned from their class studies to understand and respect the Constitution and that they have the intelligence to see through long-winded rhetoric and the courage to stand up to patronizing politicians for whom they never voted in the first place.

JOHN EARL

Huntington Beach