DARING TO QUESTION DARE

To the Editor:

As we once again stumble upon another completion of a school year, we
wonder if today's students (future voters,) are being properly educated.
But I'm not talking reading, writing, and P.E.

I truly question the DARE program altogether, I am however one of their
first graduated students. The entire structure around the program itself
is attributed from its heritage, That's right, the good ol' USA.

Here's an Idea, let's send a public service man (RCMP person) into a
classroom to teach kids about the substances which are used, misused and
abused in our society.

First off, sending a person of authority into a school to be an educator
isn't going to work on more than four or five out of every hundred. Why?,
you ask. Simply because children perceive people of authority as such a
chance for rebellion.

Hell it's bad enough trying to teach them the helmets and seatbelts routine.

For some strange reason Kids are using more and more rebellious behaviour.
I won't even touch the guns and knives issue, Thanks Prez.

Why could they not have set up more programs so that these students can
partake in lectures from The D&AA professional counsellors, theatrical
performance groups, and recovered speakers with a history and story to
tell? Why take a break from school days to educate our youth on the street
drugs available and their effects anyway? Do these children not have a
parent to talk to? Are these children being told about the long term
effects and consequences of substances such as sugar, yeast, salt, silk or
smoke of any kind, or the preservatives of the sorts in their day to day
diets. No!

Give the youth some freedom and hold them accountable for their own
mistakes. Don't bring an authority figure into a school to showcase a
variety of commonly available street drugs, and is the stuff they've got
any good?

We are creating nothing more than a larger drug war, a more rebellious
generation of young adults and above all, a society that hopes that their
children will succeed beyond their own expectations.

Nathan Fox,
Fernie BC