AREA STUDENTS LEARN TO SAY NO

BROOKLINE -- If Alex Duhaime did drugs, he might not be able to play
basketball, lacrosse, football or baseball.

That is one of the things Duhaime, 11, said he learned from the Drug
Abuse Resistance Education program at his school.

"I learned that you should resist drugs and they can harm you in many
ways," he said.

He and the rest of his fifth-grade class at Capt. Samuel Douglass
Academy graduated from the program April 20 with about 150 of their
friends and family members watching. They promised Brookline

Police Officer Michael Kurland they would never do drugs at the
ceremony that lasted about an hour and a half and ended with an ice
cream party.

DARE is a nationwide program designed to give kids the tools they
need to avoid using drugs and getting involved in gangs. It also
addresses issues with peer pressure and violence.

Kurland has been running the program in Brookline for six years and
said there is another benefit to DARE that has to do with children
trusting police officers.

"I remember back when I was a kid," he said at the graduation, "when
we saw police we ran the other way. We were afraid."

Now kids run toward him, which can make him feel as if he were "the
biggest recipient" of the program, he said.

Several students read essays they wrote about DARE during the
ceremony and received certificates and T-shirts. John Ogrodowczyk of
Hollis sang several songs to the students during the event while
Carol Yetto of Mont Vernon played the piano.

During the ice cream party, Alex Driscoll, 10, said she learned from
DARE that tobacco is "very harmful to your body," that "marijuana is
illegal in the United States" and "alcohol can affect your body if
you're under 21 much more than it can affect an adult's body."

Kaitlyn Atkinson, 10, said her favorite part of the program was
attending a Manchester Monarchs hockey game.

She learned from DARE that, "drugs are very, very, very, very bad for you."