Cops from around the state used Occupy Minneapolis protesters as human guinea pigs in a drug program, and if that doesn’t violate a person’s constitutional rights, little does, an attorney told a federal judge Monday.

“Our playing field is they used these kids as things, they used them as guinea pigs,” plaintiff’s attorney Alan Milstein told U.S. Magistrate Franklin Noel. “They used them as means to an end, and that’s wrong.”

Milstein was opposing a request by several county sheriffs and police departments, including Ramsey County, to throw out a lawsuit filed by six Twin Cities residents who say they were given drugs by police so officers could evaluate how a person behaves when they are under the influence.

The state used the so-called Drug Recognition Evaluators, or DRE, program at Peavey Plaza in Minneapolis in early 2012, asking for volunteers among people camped there for the Occupy Minneapolis movement.

Officers approached protesters and asked them if they wanted to volunteer for the DRE program. Those who did were taken to a warehouse and given marijuana. Officers watched while they smoked it, the plaintiffs contend.

When the subjects were done, officers dropped them back at Peavey Plaza, next to the Hennepin County Government Center.

Six Occupy plaintiffs allege their constitutional rights were violated by more than two dozen law officers. The officers came from sheriff’s offices in Ramsey, Dakota, Washington, Anoka, Fillmore, Olmsted, Kanabec, Chisago, Lyon and Nobles counties.

There also were officers from police departments in Hutchinson, Farmington, Coon Rapids, Maple Grove, Big Lake and the Lakes Area police departments.

A lawyer arguing on behalf of most of the defendants said there was no injury and that the protesters volunteered.

“They voluntarily got into police cars and left,” Jason Hiveley told Noel. He said there was no proof the subjects were targeted because they were protesters.

He said that in some cases, subjects “volunteered more than once.”

After hearing nearly an hour’s worth of arguments from both sides, Noel said he’d take the matter under advisement and rule later; he didn’t say when.

The lawsuit stems from the now-suspended DRE program that the Minnesota State Patrol managed. The state originally was a defendant in the suit, but both sides agreed in May to drop the state as a defendant after agreeing the state had immunity in the matter.

Drug-evaluation programs are not uncommon in law enforcement. Usually, they involve officers finding a person they suspect is under the influence of narcotics, and having other junior officers observe the person’s behavior.

The thinking is that the process allows younger officers with less experience to more readily identify a person under the influence of drugs.

The DRE program used during the Occupy Minneapolis protest at Peavey Plaza, though, took the program a step further, plaintiffs claim: Officers approached protesters, who were then offered drugs, usually marijuana.

After they were given the drugs and their reactions noted by the officers, the protesters were returned to the Occupy Minneapolis encampment, they say.

In their suit, the plaintiffs claim they were targeted, along with homeless people “and other vulnerable members of the population to see what quantity of drugs their bodies could tolerate.”

They claim they were targeted because they were exercising their First Amendment right to free speech and peaceful assembly — and that seeing officers take people away in police squad cars had a “chilling” effect on other protesters, as well as on the people who were being taken away.

Also, they contend, when people were brought back under the influence of narcotics, they often became troublemakers and bothered other protesters.

“When they videotaped this, the people who came back were in a pretty serious state. You don’t want to be around that,” said Dave Bicking of Minneapolis, who was among 13 Occupy participants who sat through the hearing.

“The problems with inebriation was so bad, you didn’t want to be around there,” another participant, C.J. Sparrow, said after the hearing.

In arguing to dismiss the case, Hiveley said the plaintiffs need to show a “connection between retaliatory animus and an injury,” and he contended the plaintiffs couldn’t do that.

“These individuals agreed to the use of marijuana,” he told Noel. “It just doesn’t reach the level of a constitutional violation.”

Milstein begged to differ. “The coercion is obvious,” he told the judge. He said the officers “used these individuals … as simply tools to train themselves what somebody looks like when they’re high.”

He said there was little voluntary about the subjects’ decisions to go with the officers, largely because few knew for sure what they were getting into.

“If you don’t know what you are agreeing to, you are not giving any type of informed consent,” Milstein said. “This was anything but voluntary.”

He said that under legal precedent, the mere targeting of the protesters amounted to a violation of their First Amendment rights. He asked why the police chose people from the Occupy Minneapolis encampment, instead of “the lobby of this courthouse” or a college campus or “a Vikings game or a Twins game.”

“They targeted people at Occupy Minneapolis,” he said. “They chose them to essentially coerce them into conducting research.”

The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigated the program and recommended changes. The Hennepin County attorney’s office investigated and promised changes in the program, but said there was no basis to bring criminal charges against anyone.

David Hanners can be reached at 612-338-6516.