Detecting Drugs

Re “School Officials Try to Take a Bite Out of Drug Use,” July 20:

Bringing trained dogs to school to sniff at our children and their effects in the hopes of finding guns or drugs smacks of totalitarianism. How is running a school like a concentration camp conducive to fostering a healthy learning environment?

The presence of dogs in Culver City High School last spring may well have, as you hinted in your article, proven effective in reducing crime on campus. However, this slippery-slope argument hardly justifies expanding the use of dogs in all schools all the time; declaring martial law and suspending civil liberties would undoubtedly curb crime, but I sure wouldn’t want to live in such a society, much less to try to educate our youth under conditions like that.

ALEX RICCIARDULLI

Los Angeles