Pubdate: Tue, 04 Apr 2000
Source: APBNews (NY Web)
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Author: Todd Venezia, CONCERNED PARENTS TURN TO DRUG-SNIFFING DOGS

For teens across the country, the days of hiding bongs in their closets or
bags of marijuana in CD cases may be over.

A handful of companies are now lending parents drug-sniffing dogs to search
bedrooms, cars, clothes and, for $250, reveal whether teens are concealing a
drug habit.

It's a novel use for the same type of dogs that now patrol border crossings,
airports and schools. And the industry's pioneers say it is a legitimate way
to ease or confirm parents' fears that their children are drug users.

"It's the best investment a parent can make," said Russ Ebersole, the owner
of Detector Dogs Against Drugs. "People buy Chem Lawn to fix their lawns and
Merry Maids to clean their homes. Wouldn't you spend the same to know your
kids are safe?"

Some Negative Reactions

Not everyone's reaction to the concept has been positive. Both psychologists
and members of the detection-dog industry have objected to the dogs' home
use as an invasion of privacy and a threat to the bond of trust between
children and parents.

But others say the dogs can help if they're used wisely.

"If a kid is doing fine, it may be a waste of money," said Los Angeles-based
psychologist Robert R. Butterworth. "But some parents out there may be at
their wits' end. If the danger signs are there, I say go for it."

Ebersole said he has helped 1,250 families in the four years his
Virginia-based company has been renting out canines and handlers to parents.

Wide Range Of Controlled Substances

Like the other companies, Ebersole's foray into the home drug-dog market
came after years of providing dogs to businesses and schools. In fact, his
grandfather first started supplying dogs to police departments in 1948.

Now Ebersole's company has "dealerships" in seven cities -- including
Albuquerque, Baltimore and Seattle -- each of which will quietly send a dog
to a family's home for an hour-long search. He said he even will search
rooms of children over 18.

Ebersole said his 19 dogs can detect a wide range of controlled substances,
from the popular rave drug Ecstasy to heroin and marijuana. They can even
sniff out gunpowder or determine if a child is hanging around pot smokers by
picking the scent off clothes.

The dogs' method is similar to that of their four-legged counterparts that
work for the police -- they sniff until they smell a drug, then sit down and
point to the spot emitting the odor. That's when Ebersole's handlers turn
the search over to the parents, thereby eliminating legal entanglements and
maintaining company discretion.

Fiancee Gets Good News From Provider

Dan Gordon, a former private eye who has been using drug dogs to sniff homes
since the mid-1990s, has taken the private search a little further with his
company, the Palm Springs, Calif.-based Drug Detection Dogs.

He once provided dogs to a woman to sniff her live-in boyfriend's
belongings, just to make sure he had kept his promise to stay drug-free
before they were married.

"I felt real happy to tell her to go get married, he was clean," Gordon
said. "I look at it as a way to just help parents out when their back is
against the wall and they don't know what else to do."

Not everyone in the business agrees.

Invasion of Privacy?

Mike Ferdinand is vice president of what industry insiders call the biggest
detection-dog provider in the country, the Houston-based Interquest Group.
His company has searched scores of businesses and more than 600 school
districts from California to Michigan. But Interquest draws the line at home
searches.

"If mom and dad have a problem in the home, they should handle it
themselves, because there's nothing that we can do that they can't do,"
Ferdinand said. "It seems that they wouldn't have that kind of problem in
the first place if they had spent more time talking with their children
themselves."

Psychologist Alex J. Packer, who wrote How Rude! The Teenagers' Guide to
Good Manners, agrees that talking with children is the best strategy. But in
some families, especially ones with a child who has a long-standing drug
problem, he says, using a dog to confirm that the youth is staying drug-free
may be helpful.

"Where I can see it as a negative is when parents use it to check up on a
kid," Packer said. "Especially when it is done when the kids are at school
and it's a surreptitious invasion of privacy."

'Just Say No' Isn't Working

Packer said that the use of the dogs, even if there is a legitimate problem,
is an indication that the family's lines of communication have completely
broken down.

"I see it as a very sad development when parents have to use measures like
that or espionage to know what's going on with their kids," Packers said.
"It really indicates that the trust and the communication have broken down."

Butterworth agreed that dogs should only be used if there are already
telltale signs of drug use. He added, however, that he can understand why
parents take extreme measures.

Citing a recent study, which found that the "Just Say No" drug programs
aren't working, Butterworth said, "Parents are getting caught in the middle
and they don't know what to do."
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