STEPPING UP ANTI-DRUG MESSAGE

In answer to the city's growing drug problem, Kelowna RCMP is
targeting area schools with drug abuse education.

This year, the Mounties' U.S.-borrowed Drug Abuse Resistance Education
(DARE) program has been stepped up and is now in nearly every Grade 5
class and a number of Grade 6 classes.

Kerry Solinki, special programs coordinator in charge of DARE, says
next year they hope to expand into a separate Grade 7 curriculum. "We
have expanded because we made a promise to get into all elementary
schools in the district this year," he says.

"In the 30 years I spent as a police officer, I am convinced this is
the best program for drug awareness over all those years."

DARE is a one-hour class each week for 17 weeks. It teaches as much
about life skills as it does about drugs and violence and rather than
simply telling kids not to do drugs, it focuses on how and why they
should say no.

The program has not been without its critics, however, including the
U.S. General Accounting Office which reviewed studies of the program's
effectiveness concluding: "In brief, the six long-term evaluations of
the DARE elementary school curriculum that we reviewed found no
significant differences in illicit drug use between students who
received DARE in the fifth or sixth grade and students who did not."

But police continue to support it as volunteers and
instructors.

Last year, DARE was presented to just 17 classes and this year they
hit 74 classes in all including every Grade 5 class except for those
in Ellison elementary and South Kelowna elementary, and a host of
Grade 6s who didn't get it last year.

Before they can teach the course, officers must first take their own
two-week instructors course.

Kelowna detachment has 10 Mounties certified and has plans to add two
more.

Four officers teach DARE as their primary duty, Solinki
said.

A further two-week training course is outlined for a separate program
for Grade 7s to roll out next year.

The force only has two officers trained and ready for the new program
which will be extended in coming years.

The idea is to catch kids while they are impressionable and before
high school when they are most likely to find their first
opportunities to use drugs.

"The ultimate goal is to ensure kids have a way of making wise choices
when it comes to substance abuse, alcohol, cigarettes and violence,"
he says.

Increasing drug abuse education was also a recommendation in the Four
Pillars Coalition report on problem drug use released last week.