Pubdate: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 Copyright: 2001 The Herald Contact: Merritt Herald (CN BC) Copyright: 2001 Merritt Herald Contact: http://www.merrittherald.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1446 Author: S. Paul Varga Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/dare.htm (D.A.R.E.) NO ALTERNATIVES DARE'D There's been a fair amount of criticism of the DARE program of late. Fuelled by the emergence of the Marijuana Party during the recent election as an organized political entity and the online publication of the Merritt Herald (where cyberspace readers can monitor specific issues more easily), the criticism has come from Victoria, Toronto, as well as California and Washington, D.C. in the United States. Curiously, we've seen no criticism locally. Ask an RCMP officer or any emergency personnel official - if it weren't for alcohol and drugs they'd get pretty bored sitting around the office with nothing to do. It's not that everyone who touches alcohol has an immediate urge to go postal, or drive their car the wrong way down the Coquihalla or whatever. But there are some, and they make up an amazing percentage of the average officer's caseload. Add in drugs, and you're pretty much near 100 per cent of an officer's time - and that's just looking at an officer's time and expense, that's not factoring in the human cost at all, which amounts priceless lives lost and damaged. So it's easy to see why an upstanding, moral, righteous (not self-righteous), and concerned human being who happens to wear a badge would want to do something about the situation. If Cpl. Sean Neary wasn't running DARE, believe, me, he could find lots of other things to do within the RCMP. The last thought in his mind is justifying his DARE job. When DARE was first created it was targetted at the South Compton-Los Angeles inner city schools. In many (but not all) areas it is introduced to, they target the high-risk youth first: people generally speaking want to help those in the most danger first. Many of the numbers quoted in the letters on the following page may, indeed, be skewed by these factors. Even if they aren't, they still contradict each other with one letter writer stating DARE grads are more likely, and another writer stating DARE grades equally likely, to do drugs. Regardless, the real point is if Neary wasn't giving children balance by showing there is a negative side to drugs, who would? Parents? Too few have been doing just that. It's why so many schools and parents have accepted DARE. - --- MAP posted-by: Josh Sutcliffe