Pubdate: Sat, 26 Jan 2008 Source: Telegraph-Journal (Saint John, CN NK) Copyright: 2008 Brunswick News Inc. Contact: http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/onsite.php?page=contact Website: http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2878 Author: Khalid Malik Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/dare.htm (D.A.R.E.) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mdma.htm (Ecstasy) DARE STUDENTS TAKE THEIR MESSAGE TO DETENTION CENTRE SAINT JOHN - Grade 7 students of the city's north end schools have some vivid imagination when it comes to depicting what can go wrong for teenagers using drugs and alcohol. Sgt. David Arsenault has been using this technique with students for his DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) for seven years now, but this time he has decided to place their posters in the hallway of the detention centre at the City Hall perchance they strike a cord with the visitors of the facility. He said he tells the students to pretend they see in their dream something bad is going to happen to someone they care about and how they would want to warn them about it. The sketches are drawn on regular notebook papers in black and white or in colour. One student has drawn a highway going in opposite directions with 'life' written on one side and 'drugs' on the other. Another shows a stretcher in front of a hospital's emergency department, while still another shows a girlfriend crying outside the emergency room. One sketch shows a husband and wife in wedding attire with a huge chasm between them as if they have been cut apart. Another poster has a big E (ecstasy) on one side of the paper and jail bars on the other side. One poster has a big zero and at the bottom it says "Zero IQ if you smoke weed." There is one with just a tricycle and no child around to show the child may have been hit by a drunk driver's vehicle. Another poster has $100 drugs on one half of the paper and $10 food on the other half. One other poster has a boy and a girl walking hand in hand on the top of the page and a coffin at the bottom. A poster puts the problem in simple mathematical terms: alcohol drugs death. Arsenault said the DARE program is offered one period a week for 11 weeks for Grade 5 students and 10 weeks for Grade 7 students. The course focuses on consequences of using drugs. The program teaches the students decision-making skills so they can identify a problem, and choose a responsible course after looking at the choices in front of them. It asks them, for example, to think what they would do if they were offered drugs at a teen dance, he said. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake