Topic: It is Constitutional to strip-search children who are accused of smuggling Advil

[WindAndConfusion]

...is what I am expecting the Supreme Court to say.

At issue is whether school officials violated the Fourth Amendment privacy rights of 13-year-old Savana Redding when, in October 2003, they ordered her to take off most of her clothes in a fruitless search for suspected drugs.

The strip search occurred after one of Savana's friends was caught with prescription pills. [note: It was prescription-strength Advil. Twice as strong as regular Advil.] The friend told officials that she'd received the pills from Savana, an eighth-grade honors student. Officials then pulled Savana out of class to be questioned and, eventually, strip-searched.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0422/p02s04-usju.html

[Quemaqua]

Wait... so you're telling me you can get high off of Advil?

[Cobra951]

The most effective language of freedom suppression:

Administrators must act quickly and effectively to keep kids safe.

Think how many freedoms have been affected in the name of keeping children safe.  Hiring someone to kill the school officials involved would have been so much quicker, and in the end probably a more effective deterrent to such abuse than any ruling the Supreme Court is likely to come out with.  It's clearly a 4th amendment violation (unwarranted search).  But I expect the Court to hem and haw their way out of making such a blanket ruling, and instead narrow it down to the specifics in this case.

[idolminds]

Its also those retarded "zero tolerance" rules for stuff like drugs and knives, so a kid brings Advil for a headache or a plastic knife to cut his birthday cake and everyone freaks out.

[Quemaqua]

I just don't get what the problem is.  Who gives a fuck about Advil?  You can take like 80 of the things, and while bad for your liver, it probably isn't going to do all that much to you.  Can you actually get high off the stuff?  That seems inconceivable to me.  And if it's just some school policy about drugs that they're overreacting to, then what the hell?  You certainly don't need to stripsearch anyone for headache medicine unless there's something more nefarious at work, even if the letter of the law is that kids can't have drugs or whatever.  But I don't really understand the problem.  If I walked through the hall at any of my schools with 5 pounds of Tylenol slung over my back I highly doubt anyone would have so much as noticed, let alone cared if they found out.

If there's a legitimate concern that a kid is actually causing significant problems or causing harm to themselves, that's another thing entirely.  "Zero tolerance" is usually in place for a reason: because kids are fucking morons who do all kinds of stupid things to themselves and their friends.  You can't trust them, they don't listen to reason, they have no understanding, and they never think about consequences.  People treat kids like idiots because most of them are.

[Xessive]

I don't know if you can get high on Advil, though it does mellow you out some, the issue is there's research that suggests that you can develop an addiction to it.

Personally I avoid stuff like Advil, Tylenol, Panadol, etc. When I have a headache I get rid of it the old-fashioned way by meditating, breathing techniques, and hydrating. Works every time. It took a while for it take effect at first but the more I did it the better I got at getting rid of undesirable aches. The only medication I ever take is anything mandatory like pre/post-surgery courses. I try to resort to holistic or less artificial means. I'm kind of a hippy that way.

Oh while I'm the topic I can swear by the healing power of natural honey! That stuff is frickin' phenomenal! I don't just mean eating it; if you dress a wound or a burn add some honey to the mix and you can speed up recovery time. Holy monkey! It has to be natural honey though since artificially farmed honey is basically sugar syrup.

[Quemaqua]

I'm a hippy too.  Hate most drugs, especially since most of them don't even do anything for me.  I'll take a Tylenol or something if I have things to do and can't really chill out to get rid of the headache, but I generally avoid it if I can.

[PyroMenace]

Advil has a candy coating, its delicious.

Then it says on the bottle, do not take more than 2 advil. Then do not put a candy coating around it, for I cannot help myself.

[Quemaqua]

haha, Mitch Hedburg ftw.

[Ghandi]

I'm trying to figure out what situation would be appropriate for creepy school officials to strip search a 13-year-old. Don't we have police officers and other professionals for this sort of thing? Imagining my high-school administrators strip searching anyone is beyond disturbing.

[WindAndConfusion]

It was a female nurse and secretary who did the strip search, under instruction of a male vice principal.

[Ghandi]

I'm sure the instructions were something along the line of "take of her clothes and let me see her".

[Quemaqua]

Naw, he just wanted some of that tasty Advil.