Pubdate: Wed, 05 Oct 2011 Source: Hawke's Bay Today (New Zealand) Copyright: 2011 APN News & Media Ltd Contact: http://hbtoday.co.nz/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2947 Author: Morgan Tait SCHOOL PAYS FOR DRUGS TESTING It's worth doing as a step to ensure our school remains drug free and a safe place for kids to come to - Rector Ken McLeod, Lindisfarne CollegeAt least one Hawke's Bay school will continue to do random drug sniffer dog searches, despite a national police decision to halt the practice. Rector at Lindisfarne College Ken McLeod said the searches were an effective deterrent for drugs, and a private company with sniffer dogs was employed regularly at the decile 10 integrated school. "We have [hired a private company] and will continue to do so because we think it's worth doing as a step to ensure our school remains drug free and a safe place for kids to come to," he said. "There is a cost involved but we feel it is worth coming up with money to do that because it is such a significant issue in the community." He said the searches were executed at least once every term, and had never uncovered any drugs. "We've had a clean sweep every time which is pleasing. They go through the boarding house and through different parts of the school. We like to make sure we do a pretty good thorough sweep. "To the pupils it sends a clear message the school is opposed to drugs and bringing them to school is totally unacceptable." Lindisfarne confirmed its stance on drugs tests as the police called a halt to all school drugs tests by officers with dogs. Nationally, police are refusing to carry out the random searches at schools after legal advice around claims use of drug-sniffer dogs breaches pupils' civil rights. Eastern District Operations Manager Inspector Mike O'Leary said the change was not new for Hawke's Bay as local drug searches had long since stopped in favour of a more educational approach. "We will be reviewing all interaction that we have with schools, although we have known about this for some time," he said. "We have been focusing on education and not enforcement, as that has been left in the domain of the school." Mr O'Leary said schools used to be able to approach Police Youth Education divisions and ask for the searches, and then work with police to deal with any students caught with illegal substances. "This has only occurred when the school's administration have found that they have had a problem," he said. "Drugs have sometimes been found on students or in their bags. The pupil is dealt with by the school, assisted by Youth Education." Hawke's Bay Secondary Schools Principals Association president Neal Swindells said the lack of police drugs searches was not a "hot issue" in the region, but the effectiveness of the practice would be missed. "It's not really a hot issue or anything, but it's one of those techniques we could use to try and keep our schools drug free." Random searches would probably be preferred by principals, but police-led drug education was valued, he said. "Schools would love to be able to get the police to come in and do random searches," Mr Swindells said. "I am pretty sure that's standard, but they haven't been able to do that in Hawke's Bay for a couple of years. "A school gets word from time to time that there could be students bringing drugs to school but they are pretty hard to find, so if we knew of an incident and could investigate, especially with help from police, then it's really helpful." - --- MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.