Global Courant 2023-05-11 10:49:01
Houston, TX– The current fentanyl crisis has led to a shift in drug education. Now schools and police forces believe that children from group 5 should learn about the dangers of hard drugs.
The DARE America program has been around since 1983, originally teaching kids to “Just say no to drugs.” Now the message is changing and Venina Smith says her son could have benefited from the updated curriculum.
“My son died of fentanyl poisoning on September 16, 2020. He was 40 when he died, and had been dealing with addiction and mental health issues for several years since he was a teenager,” Smith said.
Smith said her son’s drug addiction started in middle and high school, even though he received DARE’s police-led Drug Abuse Resistance Education. She believes the program needed an upgrade.
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Venina Smith lost her son to fentanyl poisoning. She says he struggled with addiction as a teenager. (Venina Smith)
“It was outdated. ‘Just saying no’ wasn’t (enough),’ Smith said. ‘Just say no, but say no to what?’
Now the curriculum of the federally funded program has shifted to “Keeping It Real.”
Dennis Osborn serves as DARE America’s Western Regional Director. Osborn says the updated curriculum helps raise awareness of the harsh realities of new drugs and the consequences of addiction.
DARE officers teach students in the Houston Independent School District. (Fox News/Joy Addison)
“We start teaching them about 8th grade and high school about addiction cycles and how the brain works and how they can become addicted to certain substances like heroin, fentanyl, opioids,” Osborn said.
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The CDC reported that fentanyl overdose deaths for people ages 10 to 19 had increased by more than 180% between 2019 and 2021.
Fentanyl overdoses in people ages 10 to 19 have increased by more than 180% between 2019 and 2021. (Joy Addison/Fox News)
The Houston Independent School District has restarted its DARE program in Fall 2020. Brittany Burden, who serves as a Houston ISD DARE officer, said drugs are changing and increasing on a daily basis.
“Five or 10 years ago, we didn’t know exactly the magnitude of the problem with fentanyl, so now our kids are being exposed to it from their classmates,” Burden said.
In 2021, DARE added a factsheet on fentanyl to its program — a change Smith says could help save lives.
DARE recently added a factsheet on fentanyl to its program. (Joy Addison/Fox News)
“Some kids start experimenting around age 12,” Burden said. “If we don’t spread the word about what these drugs do and how fentanyl is involved in many of these illegal drugs, kids will think ‘oh, it could be good.'”
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DARE reports that about 6,000 law enforcement agencies — nearly a third of U.S. departments — enroll their officers in schools across the country.
In addition to a renewed focus on fentanyl education as the opioid crisis rages, there are other school programs similar to DARE, such as the All Stars Core Program and the Child Development Project, that focus on teen suicide and social media safety awareness.
Joy Addison joined Fox News in 2022 as a Houston-based multimedia reporter.