DARE PROGRAM CUT, DRUG EDUCATION RETURNING TO PARENTS' DOMAIN

Lynden area DARE graduates didn't know it at the time, but they were the
final group of students to walk in Lynden's Farmers Day Parade with the
DARE officer in June. The program has been discontinued because of
financial strains.

The DARE program has died in local schools with Lynden Police Department
pulling the plug this year.

Students in Lynden, Lynden Christian and Ebenezer Christian schools will no
longer receive Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) training through the
Lynden Police Department.

The program has been cut, mostly for financial reasons.

Lynden Police officers provided the national program to fifth graders in
local schools for 12 years, with the city paying most of the $240,000 in
DARE costs during that time period. A mini-DARE program was offered to
second graders.

In the program's last years, the combined school systems also contributed
approximately $7,000 per year in federal drug education grants towards the
program.

Lynden Police Chief Jack Foster said budget cuts are behind the decision to
cut the DARE program, which has already been cut in other Whatcom County
schools except Bellingham.

"It's not that we don't want to do it," Foster said.

"I've been ordered to cut my budget by 15.2 percent," Foster said, but
"13.7 percent is as low as I can go" without eliminating officer positions.

Thus, the money the department formerly spent to have a full-time DARE
officer for six months each year will now be redirected to return the
officer to regular police duties.

"I need that officer back on the street and I need that $37,000 back in my
budget," Foster said. Lynden City Council Public Safety Committee member
Gary Vis agreed.

"It wasn't the best use of funds at this time to continue the DARE
program," Vis said. "It's unfortunate. I wish we could have continued it."

The DARE program has come under criticism nationally for not accomplishing
its drug prevention goals among youth. Foster said it's difficult to
measure how DARE training impacted students' life choices. Whether or not
illegal drug use went down among local youths cannot be determined.

However, Foster said, what he valued most about the DARE program is that
young students "got to know one of our officers on a person-to-person
basis. To me, that was worth a lot," he said.

Everson Police Chief Erik Ramstead said his agency stopped providing DARE
training to Nooksack Valley Elementary School students in the mid-1990s.

Sumas students also received their DARE training at Nooksack Valley
Elementary because the Nooksack Valley School District configuration at the
time included just a primary school in Sumas.

"It became a funding issue, both from the school and from us," Ramstead
said. "We needed to put that (officer) back on the road."

Ramstead said a health teacher can teach students the physiological effects
of drug use, but he also valued the interaction the DARE program provided
between officers, schools and children. He said students realized that
"cops are people too."