Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 13, 1993 TAG: 9305130497
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
To be sure, the illicit drug trade is criminal, amoral and destructive, and has made violence and fear part of everyday life in much of America.
The victims of its addictive powers are many - on inner-city streets, in middle-class living rooms and in the privileged sanctuaries of the rich. Victims, too, are drug-free, straight-arrow citizens who experience the fear: that their homes will be burglarized; that their cars will be broken into; that they will be attacked and robbed.
All to feed the insatiable beast of drug use.
People are weary of the fear, weary of the costs of fighting that beast. So if John and Jane Citizen are asked if they'd mind letting the police search their car for a few minutes in hopes of catching a drug-runner, it's not surprising that most - 105 of the 107 stopped at a checkpoint near Interstate 81 - agreed, and that some voiced their support.
But fear and frustration aren't good cause to erode our freedoms, one of which is freedom of movement.
Roanoke County police were careful to set up their search within legal guidelines. They stopped everyone who exited I-81 at Dixie Caverns, so no group of people was targeted unfairly based on profiles of so-called typical drug-runners. Each driver was asked for permission before a vehicle was searched. Anyone who refused was allowed to proceed without further hassle; no effort was made, police say, to keep a record of them or to track them after they went their way.
All of that reflects commendable professionalism. But it leaves the question of just what such efforts accomplish, and at what cost.
Police say the officers were "not intimidating or coercive," and there is no reason to suspect that they made any effort to be threatening.
But a request by an armed officer empowered by society to police its members' activities carries an element of intimidation, intentional or not. Why was permission to search granted voluntarily by the five people subsequently charged with misdemeanor marijuana possession?
And that is what this effort netted: five misdemeanor charges. Was this worth hours of the time of 35 to 40 police officers?
To another question - why on Earth would people transporting illicit drugs in bulk agree to a voluntary search of their vehicles? - the answer seems to be: Sometimes they do, for whatever reason.
So it's possible the police might have stumbled on a big haul of cocaine. They were acting on information that I-81 is a major route for drug traffic from the south, headed toward drug centers in the north. Their hope is to reduce this traffic, at least where it flows through Roanoke County.
But weigh the arrests of a few low-level "mules" in the drug trade against the time and expense for police, the inconvenience for motorists, and the worrisome practice of stopping innocent citizens without probable cause. And this practice is to grow. The police conducted the first search operation at an exit that gets relatively little traffic and at a time of day - from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. - when traffic overall is light. But this was just a test to work the bugs out of the procedure.
To catch fish, you have to spread a net. Roanoke County Police are planning to conduct more searches at busier times and locations. Three- to five-minute searches of large numbers of cars at a busy exit sounds like a traffic tieup that will have some motorists gnashing their teeth. Motorists perhaps tired from a long day of work, or in a hurry to pick up their kids. Citizens who use no drugs heavier than the caffeine in their coffee to help get them through their day.
It is difficult for law-abiding citizens to refuse a polite request from police officers who are dedicated public servants doing dangerous and difficult work for the protection of the rest of us. But in this case, there should be no guilt associated with just saying no.
by CNB