Conavirus......

[iris lilies]

Actually the only two “laws” I suggested were taking the driver’s license (I guess combined with requiring the car manufacturer to include the breathalyzer - I had a cigaret lighter in my car for years and never used it...) and making organ donation opt out - again, you have to check a box when you get your first license, or later if you change your mind - hardly a draconian restriction.

the rest is literally stuff that requires community action and funding and could be completely voluntary and in some cases free if only we cared enough.

btw, I am a one woman anti tobacco and drug, do not drink or tail when driving crusade in my classroom. (I have a personal litmus test for my actions - 1) will I get fired? 2) will it be worth it? In this case 1) probably not and 2) yes.)

still love the drug dogs. Never met a drug dog I didn’t like. Semi related, Have you ever met a bloodhound? They’re adorable!

Having large dogs of any kind sniffing a library using population made up of a large percentage of African American men who 1) may be carrying illegal drugs and/or 2) may have outstanding warrants seems to be circa 1938 Mississippi. intimidating? Little bit.

Your whiteness is showing, and I don’t say that lightly. I am annoyed with myself for saying it but geez it had to be said.

[frugal-one]

The devil is in the details of what “easily preventable” consists of.

I do not like the way you breezily say what “we” can do to others. “We” can so easily make them do X because “we” think “we” know better than they do what is best for all of us.

if you want to attach a breathalyzer to you car you are free to do that. You are free to stand on a street corner urging people you see to sign their driver’s license to give away organs.

But you want the heavy hand of government to do all of the dirty work for you, dirty work that would be ignored in my city anyway. All the laws, rules, and regulations in the world won’t cause people to drive carefully, stop at stop signs, register their cars,pay their taxes, keep their properties up to the Standards defined by city ordinances, keep their agressive dogs on a leash, etc etc.Not even talking about shooting guns on the regular for fun or business.

I haven’t forgotten your solution to have drug dogs harassing library patrons.I still find that suggestion preposterous and I see it as a jackbooted threat that horrifies even me, Law ‘N Order Iris.

Laws will prevent many people from doing these things. I believe (probably foolishly) that most people want or try to be law abiding citizens.

[Chicken lady]

Iris lilies, both my whiteness and my experience in eduction are showing.

I think you are visualizing an armed man in uniform with a German shepherd.

my school has a drug dog. It’s a small, friendly, herding breed. It belongs to a staff member. If we have concerns or a few times a year it comes in to visit. The children pet it and play with it and they don’t know it is a drug dog and now and then, somebody gets called down to the office and their backpack gets searched and their parents get called. Someone asked how to get the drugs out of the library. Clearly asking people not to bring drugs into the library won’t work. There is no non-confrontational way to get the drugs out of the library. At the very least, they have to be detected and stopped/removed.

I also wasn’t envisioning a drug dog harassing library patrons. I was envisioning a well trained dog walking quietly by in a much less obtrusive fashion than most animals I meet in pet smart.

lalso, I wanted to post signs about the drug dog so that anybody walking in who could read would have the option to leave and return NOT carrying drugs.

Now totally off topic, so I won’t try to elaborate further.

[iris lilies]

Iris lilies, both my whiteness and my experience in eduction are showing.

I think you are visualizing an armed man in uniform with a German shepherd.

my school has a drug dog. It’s a small, friendly, herding breed. It belongs to a staff member. If we have concerns or a few times a year it comes in to visit. The children pet it and play with it and they don’t know it is a drug dog and now and then, somebody gets called down to the office and their backpack gets searched and their parents get called. Someone asked how to get the drugs out of the library. Clearly asking people not to bring drugs into the library won’t work. There is no non-confrontational way to get the drugs out of the library. At the very least, they have to be detected and stopped/removed.

I also wasn’t envisioning a drug dog harassing library patrons. I was envisioning a well trained dog walking quietly by in a much less obtrusive fashion than most animals I meet in pet smart.

lalso, I wanted to post signs about the drug dog so that anybody walking in who could read would have the option to leave and return NOT carrying drugs.

Now totally off topic, so I won’t try to elaborate further.

I find your thinking scary, and that is something else I don’t say lightly. “Scary” because you are so serenely convinced your proposal is no big deal. It is not true that “at the very least [drugs] must be detected and stopped/removed.” In no universe is that a goal of library service.

The public library is a different institution than your private school that serves minors.

It would be a very big deal to ID drug holders and warrant jumpers in a space that should be safe for all to enter, and haul them out of the library, presumably to lockup.

It is not appropriate to have regular patrols of law enforcement patrolling for anything other than appropriate library behavior. Whether dogs are involved or not is a secondary (but sinister) issue. Sure, holding drugs in your pocket is appropriate library behavior because it doesn’t bother other library patrons. No one cares.

sorry to get in the last word but this is a NOPE and it is somewhat tied to the concepts we touch on in this thread, government overreach.

[Yppej]

The war on drugs failed and not for lack of militarization of policing.

[JaneV2.0]

Unless there are other, chargeable indicators--patron smokes meth in the restroom. patron is clearly intoxicated, patron is dealing (and those can be dealt with), I'm with IrisLily. Why is it anyone else's business if someone is in possession of small amounts of drugs? I agree the "War on Drugs" has been a disaster.

[Chicken lady]

I said I would stop, and after this you may have all the words, but I wasn’t answering “should we remove drugs from the library?” I was answering “how do we get drugs out of the library.”

I’m sorry I scare you. I don’t think I’m a particularly scary person irl. I personally would be opposed to the lockup, but I think it would be ok to ask them to leave if they are violating what I assume is a library policy (again, no personal judgement on if it SHOULD be a library policy.)

[Yppej]

If I have a home, or a car, I can stash my drugs there (speaking theoretically, I am not a user) and go to the library drug free. If I live on the streets what are my options?

[bae]

I have a bloodhound. He is indeed adorable and fun. I use him for search and rescue work, and other misc. tracking. He has saved quite a few lives.

I can subtly, in a way most of you wouldn’t notice, cause him to “alert” anytime I want.

I have raised and trained scent hounds for over 25 years now. And when I was a child, my grandparents took care of me during the day, and grandpa had a pack of hunting beagles, and a pack of Black and Tan coonhounds. Scent hounds are great.

[iris lilies]

I have a bloodhound. He is indeed adorable and fun. I use him for search and rescue work, and other misc. tracking. He has saved quite a few lives.

I can subtly, in a way most of you wouldn’t notice, cause him to “alert” anytime I want.

I have raised and trained scent hounds for over 25 years now. And when I was a child, my grandparents took care of me during the day, and grandpa had a pack of hunting beagles, and a pack of Black and Tan coonhounds. Scent hounds are great.

Beagles and Bloodhounds are cute but I don’t want them on drug patrols in the public library. People bring in all kinds of illegal things, illegal drugs and guns being the obvious ones. i’m sure there are other illegal things I don’t know about that they bring in. But as long as their behavior is stellar, I would never advocate using Library Policy on illegal activities to boot them out let alone have the gendarmes escort them to lockup.

At any one time at Central Library downtown or the Regional branch in the North part of the city it is likely someone in the building is carrying an illegally obtained gun. That’s just the demographic we have here and yes guns as well as holding certain drugs are against Library policy.

Unlike schools, the Library where I worked did not have a “0 tolerance” policy.