Thursday, July 22, 2010

Report - 9/11 primary cause of DARE demise


9/11 primary cause of DARE demise
By Bob Robinson

“The things you taught us were exactly right… I was able to stand up to it.”

“I should have listened to you… I lost my wife, my kids, my freedom, my cash… due to my heroin addiction.”

Sgt. Mike Burns, Darke County Sheriff’s Office, said Sept. 11, 2001, was the primary cause for the DARE program being dropped by the county.
“The program was proactive… our resources had to be shifted more to reactive.”
Burns told Greenville Kiwanis at their Wednesday meeting that the program “limped” along for another six months after 9/11, then was gone.
He started DARE for the county in 1993. The primary focus was fifth graders – the “core” for reaching kids early, although that has probably changed to earlier grades by now – but the national program is designed for K-12, even adults.
In the beginning, the cost was about $10,000 a year. By the time it was expanded throughout the county and reached junior high and high school, it was about $30,000 a year.
Burns said they did what they were supposed to do – they had stickers, pencils; they went to the fair and people always wanted “stuff” – that’s where the cost came in.
In the end, however, DARE means a cop coming into the classroom and talking about drugs.
“The uniform is everything,” Burns added. “When you go into a school, kids are attracted to it. It even helps with the teachers.”
Burns said that being a DARE cop means being available 24 hours a day, and at its high point involved three full time officers.
“It takes a special person to do this,” he said, “not because they don’t want to but because the demands on their time are so great.”
Burns said he didn’t know where to start on the benefits that were lost…
“I guess a box that kids can ask questions. After the usual ‘are you married’ and ‘do you have kids’ I’d see questions like ‘my older brother smokes marijuana, what will happen to him’ and then questions about Mom or Dad… then even abuse issues,” Burns said.
“We were able to help these kids.”
Officer Don Drew called me a while back, Burns said. He told me about two college girls who came up to him while he was in Walmart.
“You know, I’m in college now, Ball State,” one of them said. “The things you taught us were exactly right. I was offered everything… I was able to stand up to it.”
The other girl said she wasn’t quite as successful.
“I tried it once,” she said. “Never again!”
Then Burns talked about someone who didn’t get the message. He said the young man was on their “radar” – stealing to get drug dollars – and ended up in the county jail.
He sent a note that he wanted to speak to someone from DARE. I talked to him.
“I should have listened to you,” he said. “I lost my wife, my kids, my freedom, my cash… due to my heroin addiction.”
He said the young man told him there was no place here that he could get help. The best that could be offered was methadone treatment and he didn’t want to trade one addiction for another.
Burns said 95 percent of all crimes committed in Darke County are drug related, and that all the county could do is be reactive… not proactive.
Darke County is still a popular area for meth labs (methamphetamine, not to be confused with methadone) and growing operations for marijuana, however Burns said meth use has dropped because ‘meth heads’ have found that cocaine and heroin are cheaper and have a harder impact.
“The risks of making meth are greater… heroin and cocaine are taking over.” He added that it comes in from Indiana, Mexico and the Great Lakes area (Chicago).
It’s too easy… too accessible. He added that it’s even easy to get it in jail.
“They get it in the mail,” he said. “Envelopes might have been soaked in meth, coke or heroin, then ironed dry. They peel postcards apart, drop in the powder and seal them shut again.”
He said ‘reactive’ is tough… it’s time consuming. They could spend hours on one buy and it has to be a team… working alone is too dangerous.
“Our court system requires two ‘buys’ before an arrest can be made.”
He said it has only been recently that drug teams are able to concentrate on dealing with the problem again, but that it’s still reactive. He didn’t know when or if a proactive program could be started again.
“Can you help?” he said. “A volunteer program could probably have an impact. I don’t know.”
He added that if someone… a group wanted to try, he’d help as much as he could.
Greenville Kiwanis meets every Wednesday at noon at the Chestnut Village Center, Brethren Retirement Community.
 

Bob Robinson is the retired editor of The Daily Advocate, Greenville, Ohio. You can read his comments, opinions and reports at http://opinionsbybob.blogspot.com. If you wish to receive a daily notification of items posted, send your email address to: opinionsbybob@gmail.com. Feel free to express your views.

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