Owner of Fort Myers rehab weighs DARE program’s possible return

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FORT MYERS, Fla. The Drug Abuse Resistance Program, or D.A.R.E., recently lost its funding when researchers found it wasn’t effective.

However, Attorney General Jeff Sessions believes the drug prevention program “saves lives” and is advocating for its return.

Trey Radel, the former Florida congressman busted for cocaine in 2013, strongly disagrees with Session and took to Twitter to state his opinion:

Robert Raab, owner of Nextep, a Fort Myers-based addiction treatment center, thinks education is key for prevention, but only if it’s done properly.

“When it was peer-to-peer, they found prevention to be much more effective than authority figure-to-peer,” he said.

The original D.A.R.E. curriculum was created by police officers and teachers, but the program’s website states they’re working to replace it.

“The only constant in life is change and if we can be humble and take an honest look at what we’re doing right and what we’re doing wrong, we can hopefully save more lives,” Raab said. “We’re in the middle of an opioid pandemic and we’re dying in record numbers.”

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