|
Florida Counterdrug ventures pay off in recent 24-hour period
|
Florida National Guard ST. AUGUSTINE, Florida (8/12/2002) — The ongoing effort to curb illegal drug use in Florida met with a busy - and markedly successful - 24 hours recently, as the Guard's Drug Demand Reduction program was selected for a prestigious national award and members of the National Guard helped seize more than 3,600 pounds of cocaine at the Port of Miami. "It was a good 24 hours for the Florida National Guard Counterdrug effort," Florida Guard Counterdrug Coordinator Lt. Col. Alan Petty said. "Not only did our demand reduction team win a major award on July 29, but less than a day later our soldiers working interdiction duty in Miami helped keep a great deal of cocaine from reaching our streets." On July 29 the Florida National Guard Drug Demand Reduction (DDR) initiative was selected from similar National Guard programs throughout the nation as recipient of the Twelfth Annual Secretary of Defense Community Drug Awareness Award. This award is presented to programs from each branch of the service, defense agencies, and the National Guard Bureau, and is recognition of "outstanding accomplishments" in drug reduction education and prevention. Florida's DDR program - which has won the award two times before - is titled "Knight Vision" and aimed at teaching middle and high school students about the dangers of alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs. Qualified Guard personnel serve as instructors for the Knight Vision curriculum, and provide the cost-free classes to several different schools each month. One of the secondary goals of the program is to identify role model students in secondary schools throughout the state, and train them to be informed presenters of the program. Once trained the students themselves can present the curriculum to schools and peers in their counties. "We've reached more than 43,000 students this year with the Knight Vision program," Petty said, "and our vision is to reach more than half the students in the state within the next few years." Less than a day after the DDR award was announced, members of the Florida Guard counterdrug team and U.S. Customs agents discovered the cache of cocaine in containers offloaded from a cargo ship at the Port of Miami. On July 30 the guardsmen were searching containers of scrap paper from the Dominican Republic when - with the help of a drug-sniffing dog - they discovered cardboard boxes filled with duffle bags hidden in the containers. Inside the bags were bricks of cocaine totaling 3,618 pounds. So far this year Florida National Guard personnel working drug interdiction have helped seize more than 5,500 pounds of cocaine, 215 pounds of heroin, 21,000 pounds of marijuana, and more than $3 million in currency, according to Petty. Last 10 Stories
|
News & Reference |
 |
 |
|
2004 National Guard Bureau |
||
