DRUG WAR MADNESS PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE DrugSense FOCUS Alert #380 - Monday, 11 August 2008 Today the Los Angeles Times printed a superb OPED by Vera Leone, an Internet communications associate with the Drug Policy Alliance http://www.drugpolicy.org The OPED references a Los Angeles Times July 12th article 'Strip-Searched Girl Wins Appeal' http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v08/n000/a067.html and a U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling which is at http://drugsense.org/url/SYiKN2It The country's fourth largest circulation newspaper is always a worthy letter to the editor target. The Los Angeles Times advises that published letters typically run 150 words or less and may be edited. You may use the newspaper's webform at http://drugsense.org/url/bc7El3Yo to send letters or email them to Pubdate: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 Source: Los Angeles Times (CA) Copyright: 2008 Los Angeles Times Author: Vera Leone DRUG WAR MADNESS Federal Courts Took Far Too Long to Rule That It's Wrong to Strip-Search a 13-Year-Old Girl Suspected of Carrying Ibuprofen. She was a 13-year-old honor student. She may or may not have given her friend prescription-strength ibuprofen, though the girl certainly didn't have any on her. An assistant principal, acting on the word of a scared fellow student, brought the eighth-grade girl into his office and subjected her to a strip search. In the presence of the school nurse and the assistant principal's administrative assistant, this young woman was forced to strip off her clothes including her underwear, exposing first her breasts and then her pubic area, on the erroneous suspicion that she was hiding . . . ibuprofen. At this Arizona middle school, students are prohibited from carrying drugs -- even over-the-counter medication -- into school. Last month, The Times reported that a panel of judges on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned (in a 6-5 decision) previous rulings that condoned the actions of the assistant principal, who is now finally considered liable for damages. The student was searched by women, the nurse and the administrative assistant. It's still abuse. I've been through these searches. Regardless of your gender or that of the people searching you, it's a violation of your rights. I spent six months in federal prison for civil disobedience a few years ago. What vividly remains far and away the worst part of the experience was being strip-searched. After receiving a visit, I ran the random (sometimes not so random) risk of having to strip off all my clothes, including undergarments -- just in the way this middle-school girl was forced to strip -- and bend over and cough. As a survivor of sexual abuse, these strip searches were particularly traumatic. Given the percentage of incarcerated women who are also survivors of abuse, these strip searches were traumatic for most women. Some guards used their power punitively. Such searches can re-traumatize survivors, and even for women and girls on the outside, sexual abuse and assault are far too common. Until this recent successful appeal, school officials, supported by not one but two previous sets of judges, had (almost) gotten away with an unfathomable violation. In their zeal to completely eliminate student access to all drugs, in what will forever remain a failed endeavor (we can't keep drugs out of prisons, so how can we keep them out of schools?) that neither teaches our children about fact-based decision-making nor builds trusting relationships with them, those fighting the drug war have unapologetically crossed a very serious line. There is no moral defense for their reprehensible actions. They were not protecting the safety of students. What are we doing to our students by treating them in such a manner? Why are we doing things to 13-year-old girls that appear to be preparing them for prison? While the Arizona assistant principal might be exposed to a civil liability, it's not nearly enough. Everyone who stood by should be fired for the unconscionable abuse of this student. Everyone who participated in this horrific violation -- including the nurse and the secretary -- deserves nothing short of being expelled from our public schools immediately. They should be nowhere near our children, ever -- let alone responsible for their protection. Thanks to the drug war, middle-school administrators are behaving like prison guards -- and that scares the hell out of me. It horrifies me that an assistant principal, his administrative assistant, a nurse, five of the 11 judges in this case and two previous sets of judges all thought this act was acceptable. Is no one -- not even 13-year-old young women and their bodies -- safe from drug war zealots? Additional suggestions for writing LTEs are at our Media Activism Center: http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER Please post a copy of your letter or report your action to the sent letter list ( ) if you are subscribed, or by emailing a copy to if you are not subscribed. Your letter will then be forwarded to the list so others may learn from your efforts. Subscribing to the Sent LTE list ( ) will help you to review other sent LTEs and perhaps come up with new ideas or approaches as well as keeping others aware of your important writing efforts. To subscribe to the Sent LTE mailing list see http://www.mapinc.org/lists/index.htm#form Prepared by: The MAP Media Activism Team www.mapinc.org/resource =.

Focus Alert Archive