SHERIFF DARES TO CONTINUE ANTI-DRUG WORK

ATHENS, Ga. - Clarke County Sheriff Ira Edwards is among Athens' biggest
supporters of Drug Abuse Resistance Education, the embattled education
program for fifth-graders. He should be, because for six years before last
year's upset election as sheriff, he was a DARE officer for the
Athens-Clarke police.

As one of his first acts in office, Sheriff Edwards arranged for Georgia's
annual DARE conference to be held in Athens in July 2002.

So the sheriff was more than a little perturbed when the Athens-Clarke
Commission sliced DARE out of its budget this year.

"It really doesn't make sense to host the conference if you don't have the
program," Sheriff Edwards said.

He chose to soldier on without the $44,900 budgeted for DARE, enlisting
four of his current deputies to teach the 17-week course part time, putting
a strain on his manpower and resources.

DARE, a class taught an hour each week by law officers in nearly 80 percent
of the nation's schools, has taken a beating from critics and researchers
who contend it is not an effective deterrent to teen drug use.

A long-term study by researchers at the University of Kentucky found, in
surveys of more than 1,000 DARE pupils conducted five years and 10 years
after the fact, that the program had no lasting effect on drug use.

"We've had reports come in from all over the country that it has not been
effective, that even after several iterations of the program, it still, in
the final analysis, is doing a very poor job," said Athens- Clarke
Commissioner Tom Chasteen, who said he's received "virtually no reaction"
to the decision to cut DARE out of the budget.

Proponents of DARE bristle at the criticisms.

"My thing is, if you're saving one kid's life, it's worth it," Sheriff
Edwards said. "In our county, I know that it is making a difference. I've
been in the trenches."