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Show Drug Dogs spark controversy By TOM HARALDSEN FARMINGTON A controversial controv-ersial proposal being considered by the Davis School District to use drug-detecting dogs in the schools is simply a suggestion at this point, but it is attracting interest from the American Civil Liberties Union. The proposal, now being studied by the District administration, is only one option in consideration to fight drug usage in the schools, according to a statement released by the district Friday. Schools' superintendent Dr. Richard Kendell is quoted as saying education is the key to fighting fight-ing the problem. "Educators must help students better understand the acute danger of drug use," he said. The release goes on to say that, "While not denying that adolescents adoles-cents in Davis County may have, in some instances, experimented with drugs, there is no reason to assume that the problem is more serious here than elsewhere," according to Dr. Kendall. The dog-use proposal would allow specially trained canines to be used in hallways of schools in the district to determine if searching sear-ching a student locker for drugs is necessary. The district is looking into the legal implications of such a procedure, as well as the impact that such a policy would have on the general atmosphere of the school. While declining to make any critical cri-tical comments on the procedure last week, Robyn Blumner, the executive ex-ecutive director of the ACLU in Salt Lake City, did say her group is "monitoring the situation." She stated that the ACLU is looking Is it really drujs , or just bologna sandwich and dirty socks? into the constitutionality of the proposal, and said the group's legal counsel may have more to say on the issue when it meets on March 22. One reason the district is considering consid-ering the drug-detecting dogs concept con-cept has to do with court cases involving in-volving random searching of students' stu-dents' lockers by law enforcement officers in the past. Such searches have raised serious constitutional questions. Under this new proposal, such searches would be conducted by school administrators if the specially-trained dogs give them reason to suspect lockers have narcotics nar-cotics in them. Whether there is a different constitutional standard for principals and administrators than for police officers may be the key question to be answered in the determination of this proposal's future. |