Pubdate: Tue, 19 Sep 2006
Source: Lansing State Journal (MI)
Copyright: 2006 Lansing State Journal
Contact: http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/contactus/newsroom/letter.html
Website: http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/232
Author: Dan Meisler, Special to the State Journal
Note: Author is a staff writer for the Daily Press & Argus of
Livingston County.

LIVINGSTON DARE PROGRAM MAY END THIS SCHOOL YEAR

Sheriff Would Use Funds To Reassign Officer To Road Patrol

After this school year, the DARE drug-abuse education program run by 
the sheriff in three Livingston County school districts could be a 
thing of the past.

In his 2007 budget proposal, Sheriff Bob Bezotte plans to shift the 
officer doing the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program in the 
Fowlerville, Hartland and Pinckney school districts - Deputy Debbie 
Utter - to road patrol.

"The funds are getting increasingly hard to justify," Bezotte said. 
"I think (DARE has) been a positive thing to have an officer involved 
with the students. We've hung on for a lot longer than most people have."

Reassignment of the DARE officer is part of Bezotte's plan to beef up 
patrols during nighttime hours. Two traffic-enforcement positions and 
one person from the civil division also will be put on road patrol.

"Our priority is response times and trying to get to calls as quickly 
as possible," Bezotte said.

Some educators, however, expressed disappointment at the sheriff's 
decision, which has not been finalized by the county Board of Commissioners.

"We think that anything DARE can do to allow kids to make appropriate 
choices is important," said Ed Alverson, superintendent of 
Fowlerville Community Schools.

Rick Todd, principal of Pinckney Community Schools' Pathfinder 
School, said the program has been in place in his district for about 
10 years, and this year about 400 seventh-graders will go through it. 
The program involves a police officer teaching classes on drug abuse 
prevention.

Todd said some of the benefits include building relationships between 
students and police; showing kids that the officers care about them; 
stressing healthy lifestyle decisions; and fostering a positive image 
of police.

There have been studies that call into question the effectiveness of 
DARE, such as a 2004 report in the American Journal of Public Health 
that analyzed data on the program and concluded that it was 
ineffective in preventing drug and alcohol use.

But Todd said drug education is a lifelong process, more than a 
"one-shot deal."

Statistics gathered by the local Substance Abuse Planning Ad Hoc 
Workgroup show that youth in the county use drugs and alcohol at 
higher rates than the national average.
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