Private school hires
drug-sniffing canineAcademy of the Pacific arranges
for visits by a dog trained to
detect the scent of crystal meth
A golden retriever trained to detect drugs, including "ice," will begin making unannounced visits to the Academy of the Pacific late next month, in the first such effort to sniff out contraband in Hawaii schools.
"We're taking a proactive stance," said Dorothy Douthit, head of the small, private school on Alewa Heights. "With ice around, it seems like it's a different ball game."
She said the school, which serves 150 students in grades six through 12, has a zero-tolerance policy for drugs on campus and has expelled a few students as a result.
"It just seemed like having a dog sniffing the cars and lockers and maybe some backpacks was far less invasive than some other things we might have done," Douthit said yesterday. "This is something that's now available to us and so we're doing it."
The school is the first to sign up for the new service offered by Interquest Detection Canines of Hawaii.
Whitney White, who recently bought a Hawaii franchise for Interquest Detection canines, said she has sent information to all private schools in the state and is meeting with several of them. She has not yet approached the public schools, but hopes to do so.
Her dog, Custer, will be able to detect illegal drugs, alcoholic beverages, firearms and ammunition, as well as over-the-counter medications, she said. Although humans generally cannot smell crystal methamphetamine, commonly called ice, dogs' sensitive noses can, she said.
Interquest dogs do not sniff students directly because of privacy concerns, she said. Instead, they focus on lockers, cars and common areas of the school.
In some school districts, students are directed to leave their possessions in the classroom while the dogs sweep the room, but Douthit said she does not expect to do so at Academy of the Pacific.
White said Interquest dogs are able to detect "residual odors" even when no contraband is found, which can signal to administrators the need for further investigation. Douthit said in such cases, the school would further assess the student to determine whether he or she had a drug problem.
The cost of the program varies with the size of the student body and campus, White said. Academy of the Pacific will pay $150 a visit by Custer, with roughly two visits a month.
"This program is not about catching a kid," White said. "The program is about giving a principal a tool with which to discourage alcohol, drugs and gunpowder products on campus."
Use of canine units for detection on campuses may be new to Hawaii, but has spread on the mainland in recent years in public and private schools.
"It was new when we took it on," said Robert Hulbert, principal of Colusa High School, a public school north of Sacramento, Calif., that signed up for Interquest's service in 1997. "There were not a lot of schools doing it at the time. Now it's fairly common."
Hulbert said there were roughly half a dozen "alerts" by the dogs in the course of a school year, with one marijuana pipe found last year.
"Overall, what we have found is that definitely our incidence of drug possession has diminished," he said in a telephone interview yesterday. The school, which has 425 students, recently switched from Interquest to using the Colusa County Sheriff's new detection dog.
"We're not so naive as to think this is going to eliminate the drug problem in society, by any means," he said. "What it does is it makes the message very clear about zero tolerance for drugs on school campuses."
Douthit said she had discussed the policy with parents, students and the board of trustees, and received widespread support.
Academy of the Pacific parent Bridget Komine, whose son Mana will be a junior, said she looks forward to the new policy.
"I think it's an awesome idea," she said. "We've got a real problem with drugs on this rock, and as sad as it is to say, it's infiltrated all of our schools, public and private. I look at it as being one more tool that's going to potentially keep my kids safe."