Ryan Johansen
The San Bruno Police Department is working to establish a new drug education program to be taught by officers in elementary schools beginning this year.
The program will take a “reality-based” approach, according to Police Chief Ryan Johansen, who updated the City Council this month on the pilot initiative’s progress. The program will likely be taught to fifth graders in the San Bruno Park School District, as well as potentially to those in private schools.
“We have an epidemic level drug problem, and it’s hitting right here at home,” Johansen said. “The Police Department wants to help. We want to feel that we’re having an impact on this drug problem beyond just making arrests, referring people to drug and diversion programs.”
The program will include both teacher and parent education, and reject a “fear-based” approach, something prior programs like the DARE initiative, an anti-drug school program started in the 1980s, had not done, he said.
“The elimination of the DARE program has left a huge void in our community,” Johansen said. “We want to leverage what worked with DARE and we want to improve upon what did not work.”
The program will be called RIDOF (reducing the impact of drugs on families), and is being funded by a $15,000 grant from the San Bruno Community Foundation. Johansen said a goal will be to provide “relevant, accurate and contemporary” information.
“This is one of the reasons I think it’s very appropriate to have police officers conducting a program like this,” he said. “There’s very few people who are truly on the front lines of the epidemic as the police are. We’re seeing changes literally day by day as they’re emerging.”
Johansen said the department has seen an increased amount of fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid responsible for driving an overdose epidemic in the Bay Area. The drug, manufactured as a pharmaceutical, is also made illegally and is often laced into traditionally less potent drugs creating heightened risk of an overdose.
“This new drug landscape is emerging, it’s new and poorly understood,” Johansen said.
He said fifth graders were determined as the target audience for the program due to the age group being young enough to be receptive but old enough to understand what they were being taught.
Officers are currently working to train staff and establish a curriculum, and the department hopes to have the program in full swing by the end of the year. Johansen said the department will also work on acquiring drugs and paraphernalia as displays, something that requires communication with the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.
“I’m really thrilled to see this come to fruition,” Vice Mayor Linda Mason said. Other members of the council also expressed their approval of the program.
The department already runs a drunk driving education program for high schoolers, developed by the department and taught yearly at Capuchino High School. The program is called U-DETER (underage DUI education through exposure to repercussions).
(650) 344-5200, ext. 105
(650) 344-5200, ext. 105
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