Anti-Drug Program Will Be Expanded
An anti-drug education program taught by Los Angeles police officers at public schools has been expanded to include 10 private and parochial schools, and by next year as many as 70,000 students in the city’s non-public schools could participate, officials said.
Mayor Tom Bradley, Police Chief Daryl F. Gates and Archbishop Roger M. Mahony announced the expansion of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program at Normandie Christian School before an auditorium full of fifth- and sixth-graders who have attended DARE classes for nine weeks.
Officials said they will offer the program next year to every private and parochial school in the city with more than 200 students. The new focus is not the result of specific drug problems in the schools, they said, but because students from all schools face pressures and temptations that can draw them into drug abuse. “Drug abuse is simply nonsectarian,” Mahony said.
The city, along with private and corporate backers of the DARE program, will pay for the expansion. The cost will be about $250,000 for five additional full-time officers needed next year to teach the program in as many as 162 private schools.
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