Dallas Schools Go High-Tech To Battle Drugs
Taking the idea for the Angola, La.-based Louisiana State Prison, Gary Pfeltz and his partner created Trace Detection Services, which employs a full-time drug-sniffing dog and an ultra-sensitive drug “sniffing” device to monitor and prevent substance abuse in the Texas-based Dallas Independent School District.
The approximately $50,000 contract with the school district is the company’s first big contract. The sniffing device can determine if someone has had direct or indirect contact with a drug by studying particles collected on cloth swabs and run through a desktop tool that can match the particles to a large database of illegal drugs.
Results found 25 percent of students at Spence Middle School handled cocaine or amphetamines, indications of cocaine use by Florence Middle School students in an out-of-the-way stairwell, and evidence that some Spruce High School students were smoking heroin-laced marijuana.
Schools use gates and locks to deny access to out-of-the-way areas where drugs are found, offer students substance abuse counseling and education, and involve law enforcement officers when deemed necessary.
Abstracted by the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center(NLECTC) from the Houston Chronicle (12/26/04) P. B1; Korosec, Thomas .
