OLD TOWN – A new regular at Old Town High School is trying to decrease drug and alcohol use by teens in the area by going straight to the source.

Patrolman Seth Burnes, who has worked for the Old Town Police Department for four years, began working at the school about a month ago. He refers to his new position as the “front line” and says it allows him to combat the problem with a more direct approach than he could doing street patrols.

“It’s a nationwide problem, and there isn’t a high school in the state that can say they don’t have these problems to some degree,” Burnes said Thursday while sitting in his office at the school.

The officer’s position is funded by a grant through the River Coalition and the Office of Substance Abuse as a partnership with the Old Town and Orono police departments.

“Four years ago, I wouldn’t have thought I would have gotten into this,” Burnes said. “I looked at it as something new.”

The goal of the program, called Community Trial Interventions, is to work on community strategies to reduce alcohol, tobacco and drug use in the two communities.

“Kids in this day are very conscious about the fact that they don’t want to rat out other kids or their friends,” Burnes said. Although his office, which he shares with school resource officer Debbie Holmes, is near the entrance and lobby of the high school, he said students come in often to see him.

“I have kids come in here when I’m here almost on a daily basis,” Burnes said.

Next year, Burnes said, he hopes to be more visible to both students and parents by starting off early and being active in student orientation. He said he also would like to get out into the community more to work with residents and business owners.

“We’d like to see a general reduction in the offenses that occur in the school,” Burnes said, adding that it’s difficult to measure the impact of the program.

There are no records before Burnes’ arrival with which to compare the number of incidents.

“A lot of the stuff we’re doing now is geared for the future,” Burnes said. “We’re not expecting this to work overnight.”

A portion of Burnes’ time is spent building relationships with merchants and alcohol retailers in order to address policies and laws that might be inconsistent and to encourage business owners to provide literature stating the illegality of selling or providing alcohol to minors.

“We hope that this project brings about change for hot spots like pit parties and for retailers that have people buying alcohol for youth, even if they are selling it legally,” Holly Swartz of the River Coalition said Thursday.

By working collaboratively with the Orono Police Department, Burnes hopes to decrease drug and alcohol abuse among high school students in both communities, he said. Although alcohol and marijuana are the biggest problems of which Burnes is aware, he said the trend could go beyond that to more heavy-duty drug use.

“Living in a college town like this, the kids are going to get pretty much whatever they want,” he said.

Getting other departments and officers on board and making them aware of the problem are other aspects of Burnes’ job.

“If we’re all on the same page, then it makes it easier for everybody,” he said.