What is the test for a search warrant under the exigent search warrant?

The government also relies on the police officers' expertise in cocaine cases, and suggests that because cocaine dealers tend to carry weapons and resort to violence, the suspicion of danger was justified. I cannot agree. The exigent-circumstances exception to the search warrant requirement mandates specific facts leading the police to fear for their safety. If the general fear that cocaine dealers are violent could fulfill this requirement, we would essentially create a cocaine exception to the search-warrant requirement. Our cases have not yet supported such a broad exception. See, e.g., United States v. Hatcher, 680 F.2d 438, 444 (6th Cir.1982) (finding in a heroin case that the protective sweep was not justified merely because the subject of drugs was involved and warning that this reasoning would "permit wholesale abrogation of the Fourth Amendment reasonableness requirement.").

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This court has previously recognized the danger of permitting a blanket exception to the fourth amendment without requiring specific circumstances justifying a finding of exigency. Such an exception endangers the constitutional framework. We stated in United States v. Flikenger, 573 F.2d 1349, 1355 (9th Cir.1978),