No one doubts the need to be tough on drugs, especially when it comes to school-age children. But calling in the dogs to sniff out drugs at school is an act of desperation that should be a last resort.

Unfortunately, it's perfectly legal, which makes it a near certainty anti-contraband canines will soon be on a public school campus in Hawai'i.

Maui's Lahaina Intermediate School is ready to be the first such school in the state. Ron Okamura, the Maui complex area superintendent, is all for it and even has a private drug-dog company in mind. Okamura is just skittish about liability issues.

No worries. The American Civil Liberties Union may step in to defend the civil liberties of students. But the ACLU has consistently lost on the issue in other states. That makes the case law clear: School administrators are perfectly within their rights to let drug-dogs sniff around.

A student can't be searched physically, but a dog can sniff the air around a kid or a locker. And sniffing air doesn't require a search warrant. The Supreme Court has helped by restricting the rights of students in schools. A school doesn't need probable cause to bring on the dogs, just a reasonable suspicion.

Still, just because officials can use dogs doesn't necessarily mean they should.

Drug-sniffing dogs hardly create a nurturing campus environment needed for education. Dogs can be intimidating, even terrifying. Will that create an atmosphere for learning?

Some even question the dogs' sniffing accuracy. Dogs can flag a person who may not have ingested drugs but was simply close to someone who used them.

The real problem may be that dogs won't stop kids from using drugs. It may deter students from bringing them to school, but dogs are not the ultimate answer to a drug-free youth.

That still requires a human touch.

If Lahaina is the first public school to go to the dogs, then it should do so slowly, as a test-case with close monitoring.

Let's not forget that drug-sniffing dogs don't replace our responsibilities as parents and educators.