Countywide : Anti-Drug Program Urged for Children

Third- and fourth-graders should be the target of a new $20-million program aimed at combatting drug abuse, education officials from throughout the state concluded at a meeting in Irvine Wednesday.

That, the educators said, is the age at which students now are being pressured to drink and take drugs.”

The state’s new Comprehensive Alcohol and Drug Prevention Education Program includes grants to Orange County to enhance existing drug prevention curriculum, said Pat McConahay, a spokeswoman for the Governor’s Office of Criminal Justice Planning. School districts will receive $13 per student for the program.

The idea is to involve law enforcement, parents and educators in one program.

“What makes this program unique is that it involves the entire community, not just a segment of it,” said G. Albert Howenstein Jr., executive director of the Criminal Justice Planning office. “When schools, law enforcement agencies and the community team up, that’s when we’re going to win the war.”

Most of Orange County’s schools already work with law enforcement officials on drug programs, said Bill Edelman, manager of the Orange County Drug Program. But there has not been one plan to combine the efforts of the various drug prevention agencies, educators and parents.

Santa Ana Police Chief Paul Walters said children who see their parents abusing alcohol have difficulty deciding between that example and what they learn in school about alcohol abuse.

Edelman agreed that getting parents involved in the program is the “greatest challenge.”