AUBURN — When he tools around town in a customized black and white Corvette equipped with blue lights and sirens, Auburn’s Officer Friendly is reinforcing the police department’s anti-drug message.

“It’s something physical to show the kids instead of just words,” says Don Gosselin. As Officer Friendly, he uses the car as a public relations tool.

The 1980 Corvette was confiscated by the state after police relayed to the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency a tip that a drug dealer was hiding out in the city.

Drug agents arrested the man, seized the vehicle and turned it over to the local department for use in its school liaison program.

“A drug dealer was using the car and he lost it. Now it will be used for drug education,” said Chief Roger H. Stricker of the Auburn police.

The chief says the car, which sports a state of Maine logo on its doors, provides youngsters with physical evidence of what anti-drug programs teach: Use drugs, you lose.

“They believe it, but they don’t believe it. This is a way to show them,” he said.

The car was taken under a law that allows property bought with drug money to be confiscated by the state.

“It’s a neat vehicle from the standpoint that the police department wouldn’t go out and buy a car like this,” Stricker said.