-Week course on drugs begins...
Deputies and teachers begin drug problem course on the Suncoast.
Yesterday at booker middle school, deputies met with teachers to help them learn to "spot" and "stop" drug abuse among our kids, kicking off a five-week course designed to give teachers and parents the knowledge they need to help keep teens clean.
It's sheriff's deputies who do the teaching in this after school class, and they say by the time sarasota county kids get to high school nearly one in six of them has tried an illegal drug.
Guidance Counselor Star Conti is here to learn how she can cut that number down.
Star Conti: "The more education we can give the students, from elementary on up and the parents, then the more hopefully better decisions the students will make for themselves."
Memories still burn from five connected drug deaths in August, and a 15-year-old girl's overdose just this week.
All of the victims were young. It?s a fact that drives these deputies to get their message to parents and teachers.
Sgt. David Zachos, Sarasota County Sheriff's Office: "The kids are learning from other kids basically, and about other things in life?but mainly drugs?so if they can get good, valuable information that's truthful from the teachers and from the parents, I think we can make a difference."
Deputies say their efforts against drugs can work. An education and ad campaign has brought down ecstasy use dramatically from where it was five years ago. Drug arrests in schools have climbed over the past three years. Deputies say those arrests are tools for treatment.
"That's not so that we can get all these kids arrested?that's so we can get these kids some help by maybe tipping the parents off, and parents taking action."
But with just one or two resource officers assigned to each school full of curious kids, the fight's a tough one, but it's easier with each new room full of allies.
If you want more information on how to talk to your kids about drugs, what they are and what effects they can have, check out
http://www.theantidrug.com.