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.
Politicians and teachers line up to present certificates to children who completed D.A.R.E. training this year.
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.
