Herb Ninja

The NARRAGANSETT Times

By: JESSICA HURST 02/04/2004

NARRAGANSETT - Who let the dogs out?

Last Friday morning marked the first random search by police canines for drugs at Narragansett High School, leading to four locker searches and one student suspension.

No actual contraband was found and no arrests were made, said Narragansett Police Chief J. David Smith in a telephone interview Monday morning.

"The dogs did indicate that four separate locations in the school were positive for scent," he added.

Two scent-positive locations in the junior hallway and two in the senior hallway were searched by administration, and while no drugs were found, in one locker, "the smell [of marijuana] was overwhelming," said Smith.

School administrators suspended the locker's owner for three days.

The scent in the student's locker was an indication of "residual use," of marijuana, said Superintendent Pia Durkin in a telephone interview Monday.
And part of the drug search project is to confront "the addiction issue before it becomes a legal issue," she said.

After school Monday, junior Sean Hames, 17, said he was surprised that a student could be suspended from school for something that could have happened outside of school.

And, he said, "He could have just been in a car full of students smoking weed," and not necessarily using drugs himself.

He called the drug searches "an invasion of privacy," and felt they were being used as a scare tactic.

Smith calls the searches a deterrent. "We feel it sends a very strong message."
At meetings last December among school and police officials, a persistent "sub-culture" of drug use was identified, and on December 17 Smith presented the canine searches to the school committee.

An informational letter was sent home to parents, and students were informed of the procedure basics in advance of last Friday's search.

The information helped to reduce anxiety, said Durkin.

The advance information may have also been a heads-up to potential offenders, said Narragansett High School junior Holly Bezak, 17, outside the high school Monday.

"I don't think they should have told students about it ahead of time, because everybody knew not to leave anything in their locker," she said.
Neither she nor junior Kerrie Lemoi, 16, think the drug presence on campus is serious enough to warrant the searches.

"It's definitely not necessary," said Lemoi.

But they also aren't concerned about the searches.

"Nobody really cares," said Lemoi of the student sentiment. "Every school has it."

Bezak said while the searches didn't bother her, "Maybe it's because I don't have anything to worry about."

John Dossantos, 16, a sophomore, said the searches are "Wack. They don't search Providence, but they search little Narragansett."

During Friday's search, three dogs and their handlers - K-9s from the Westerly Police Department and the Rhode Island State Police, and Narragansett's own K-9, "Rocki" - canvassed sections of the school starting at about 7:35 a.m. and through first period.

The Westerly and state police K-9s performed the in-door searches and Rocki searched the parking lot.

Only Smith and Durkin knew about the search beforehand - school administration was notified at about 6:45 a.m. that morning, said Smith.
Both he and Durkin were present for the first search, but will not necessarily be present in the future.

"We just kind of wanted to see how it was going to go," said Smith.

Students were on "lockdown" during the searches, for first period classes - a drill procedure that became state mandate in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, and will continue to coincide with the drug searches at the high school.

Students who came late were kept in the office, including sophomore Alex Smith, 15, who missed his first period class.

"As long as they're not going through my stuff, I don't care," he said after school Monday.

Most of the students did not see the search dogs, although Lemoi's first period class was in a classroom at the front of the building, and she saw them out the window.

Friday's search did run a little over time because of the "learning curve," said Smith, lasting about half an hour, but he expects the random drills to last about 20 minutes in the future.

Dogs will search areas like lockers, parking areas, and the faculty lounge, and procedure indicates that only when two dogs positively identify an area will school officials search the area.

__________________
"Truth is treason in an empire of lies." -Ron Paul

GrooveGuardian

Did so many people die in World War 2, to have there desendants treated like this. NO RESPECT**

Essential Oils

Suspended for the smell of marijuana? But absolutely no marijuana found? This has a simple answer. Hempseed oil fragrance smells strongly like marijuana. You can also buy incense sticks and perfume that has the strong scent of marijuana.

No marijuana was found, so the suspension could have been at least challenged based on smell. It would have at least proven that the smell of marijuana alone shouldn't be enough to get a student suspended. Maybe the kid or his parents were just too uneducated about the subject...

Stock up on marijuana scented perfume, incense sticks, and fragrances which contain no marijuana but smell just like it.

Think how easy it could be to frame someone at that school - but don't do that, one kid already got framed.

strange_blaze

It doesnt faze me at all to see a kid in the US being suspended for the scent of marijuana (friends of mine are no longer allowed in the states for the scent of marijuana ).
What I love is how the school thinks that suspending the kid is beneficial.

__________________
Swayin to the rhythm of the new world order
Count bodies like sheep to the rhythm of the war drums

Higher Self

That's right, negative operate conditioning is wrong in a case like this because the long run effect is a resentment on the students part that will snowball overtime, for being punished over a 'lie' to begin with.

Continued persecution of a human over the natural life cycle creates a life fraught with unecessary couterproductive discomfort, a distrust of those in charge, less cohesion in the social fabric.

How do you screw up a society? One human at a time...

jmasterj

Back in high school, I myself was investigated for the scent of marijuana. I was taken out of class and called into the office where the school principle and counselor interrogated me. After presenting them with patchouly oil which was the confirmed source of the "marijuana smell", they continued the interrogation telling me how it could be a "good cover for the smell of marijuana", and their disapproval of my outspoken views on legalization and the DARE propaganda etc. They admitted I had done nothing wrong but continued to grill me anyway. I became agitated and voiced my disapproval of what they were doing, I happened to calmly articulate some swear words into my defense, which got me suspended for "insubordination". Long story short, parents kicked me out for the suspension, never went back to school, became a successful marijuana dealer and grower, and I've contributed tons to the movement. That one event changed my life and history as I know it. Moral of the story, kids will remember this forever and see how f-cked up the war on drugs has become, the prohibitionists are panicking and in the process they're digging their own graves. Sadly, it will get worse before it starts getting better, but we have the truth on our side, and freedom has nothing to fear from the truth.

WantToHelp

hi, sorry this has very little to do with the article, but JmasterJ, you sound like you have a very interesting story that really epitomizes the fact that the drug war has the opposite effect of the one that it pretends to have (it pushes kids into drugs more often than away from them). I'm an editor of a small school newspaper and I'd like to talk to you a bit more about your story. If you're ok with that, email me at aladdinmonkey@yahoo.com, we'll keep it as anonymous as possible (hence my goofy-ass email address)