Politicians and teachers line
up to present certificates to children who completed D.A.R.E. training this
year.
Jetsada Homklin
Nearly 1,500 Pattaya students were commended for taking the
“D.A.R.E. to say no” to drugs by completing the 13-hour Drug Abuse
Resistance Education course.
Mayor Itthiphol Kunplome and Deputy Mayor Wattana Chantanawaranon handed out
completion certificates to 1,463 students at the Pattaya Indoor Athletics
Stadium Sept. 5.
Taught by officers from the Pattaya, Banglamung and Koh Chan police
departments, D.A.R.E. aims to give children the skills needed to recognize
and resist the subtle and overt pressures that cause them to experiment with
drugs or become involved in gangs or violent activities.
The course is taught an hour a week for 13 weeks as part of Pattaya’ broader
effort to combat illegal drugs. So the city partnered with the two other
police departments to put the course in all the city’s public schools where
it is taught to sixth graders.
Thai authorities said recently they want to expand the D.A.R.E. program
nationwide by next year.
Col. Jirasak Meesattham, deputy commander of the general staff division at
the Narcotics Suppression Bureau, told a D.A.R.E. meeting in Pattaya, that
the bureau wants to recruit 3,276 more trainers to cover every sixth-grade
class in the country by the end of 2015.
