VALDOSTA — Stephen Findlay adds another voice in the fight against teenage drug and alcohol abuse.

The law enforcement officer has spent 18 years working as the DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) Program administrator for the Valdosta Police Department in the Valdosta City School System.

Findlay views the program and his work with students as another way to reach them about how decisions made now can affect the rest of their lives.

“It’s one more voice talking about not doing harmful things,” Findlay said. “Smoking, drinking, other drugs and, of course, our main focus is on tobacco, alcohol, marijuana and the inhalants, since those are sort of the gateway drugs as they are known.”

Findlay has been in Valdosta since 1986. Before joining the Valdosta Police Department, he held jobs in a variety of professions. A Marine Corps veteran who served in Vietnam, he also worked at an insurance company and Belk before becoming a police officer.

“Being a police officer was just a road to what I’m doing now,” he said.

Findlay doesn’t exactly remember how he got involved in the DARE Program. He either volunteered or was asked to participate, he said.

He figures it was a bit of both. In August of 1992, he and Jim Griffin, now a Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office deputy, went to DARE training.

Findlay viewed the DARE Program as a chance to do something else and work in the school systems.

The thing he remembers most about that first training program was the importance of being accurate when teaching, he said.

“What we do is back up the parents because the parents are still number one,” Findlay said. “But sometimes when a kid hears it from somebody else it sinks in a little bit.”

Findlay said the best part about working with students is seeing the light go on, when comprehension of a lesson is realized.

“Now one little lesson does not solve anybody’s serious issues obviously,” he said.

The first classes Findlay taught were at Southeast Elementary and West Gordon in the fall of 1992.

“I like teaching and I enjoy working with kids,” Findlay said.