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.
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MAP posted-by: Josh Sutcliffe