OFFICIALS CALL DARE INEFFECTIVE

When it comes to replacing the nearly 20-year-old Drug Abuse
Resistance Education program, it's full speed ahead, according to
Suffolk County officials - despite the protests of at least one
legislator who thinks that the DARE program should be kept going as
presently constituted.

In response to the news that the county administration intends to
roll aspects of DARE into the county's newly proposed K-12
HealthSmart program, Legislator Cameron Alden (R-Islip) has
introduced legislation that would continue the DARE program in
Suffolk. Saying that DARE "continues to enjoy strong support from
school districts and members of the community," Alden recently filed
a bill calling modifications to or the elimination of the program a
policy shift significant enough that it should be subject to
legislative review and approval.

DARE is a program that has seen its day and is out of date, according
to both Suffolk Police Commissioner Richard Dormer and Humayun
Chaudhry, the commissioner of Suffolk's Department of Health
Services. "The DARE program has had problems," Chaudhry noted. "There
have been a couple of studies done, locally and nationally, which
have found that it was not as effective as it was touted to be."

"In 1988, cell phones weren't in play, Internet wasn't in play,"
added Dormer. "There's gang violence, identity theft, bullying, all
sorts of issues to deal with today that aren't covered in DARE. We
need a 21st century program."

However, Alden disagrees. "I was disappointed when I got the memo
that they're going to reassign the officers out of the DARE program,"
said Alden. "DARE is a known entity, no one has said this is a bad
program, it's all speculation. I'm not interested in replacing it
with another program unless I know that the new program will work."

DARE has served as an in-school anti-drug program since it was
founded in 1983 in Los Angeles as a way to give students the skills
they need to avoid involvement in drugs, gangs and violence. A police
officer-led series of classroom lessons that teaches children how to
resist peer pressure and live productive drug- and violence-free
lives, DARE has the added benefit, say proponents, of giving children
a positive experience with a uniformed officer. Here in Suffolk
County, it has been offered to fifth-through seventh-graders since 1988.

But according to Chaudhry, a federal study done by the US Government
Accountability Office questioned the effectiveness of the program,
and in 2002 the National Research Council got in on the act. About
that time, a local study here in Suffolk County also raised questions
about DARE's efficacy. "In 2001, the Suffolk County Legislature task
force put out a report that said there was no credible evidence that
DARE decreases drug use," said Chaudhry.

In a GAO report to the US Senate, dated January 15, 2003, Marjorie
Kanof, managing director of healthcare for the GAO, stated that they
had found no significant differences in illicit drug use between
students who received DARE in the fifth or sixth grades, and students
who did not.

Six long-term evaluations were conducted of DARE programs in
Kentucky, Illinois and Colorado, with similar findings. In one, a
sample of 1,798 students from 36 urban, suburban and rural schools in
Illinois were surveyed over the course of several years, from the
sixth through twelfth grades. Eighteen elementary schools were
participating in the DARE intervention and 19 others were not. The
study measured any use of illicit drugs by students.

"No statistically significant differences were observed between the
intervention and control groups," according to the report on the
study. "The DARE students were more likely to report stronger
negative attitudes about drug use and improved social resistance
skills immediately after the intervention. However, these positive
effects eroded over time."

"[I]t would be a disservice to our kids not to pay attention to these
studies," Dormer added. "We could keep this expensive program, cancel
it completely, or amend the program to make it better. We've chosen
the latter. We will take the good parts of DARE and incorporate them."

Suffolk County isn't alone in wanting to move to a new way of
providing education to children. According to Chaudhry, DARE is being
replaced in schools and police departments across the country, such
as Chandler School District in Arizona, and the Shorewood School
District in Milwaukee, as well as schools in Jacksonville, Florida
and Knoxville, Tennessee, to name a few.

Now it's Suffolk's turn, said Chaudhry. "The HealthSmart curriculum
provides a range of topics that are identified by the Centers for
Disease Control as important issues, not just the ones identified by
DARE," he said. "We're going to work with the police commissioner to
provide much more. We'll have uniformed officers who will supplement
what we already talk about."

The new program will be called "Enhanced HealthSmart Curriculum," and
officers would supplement the teachers' activities in a comprehensive
range of health education issues. "We want to do a seamless
transition, no gap, but we want to we want to move away from DARE as
quickly as possible. As soon as the paperwork is complete,
internally, we intend to."

Alden's bill to retain DARE went to the Legislature's Safety
Committee for consideration last week, and was tabled. For his part,
Alden thinks DARE is getting the job done, and said he will continue
to push for its continuance.

"Kids are getting something out of this, at a minimum they're
establishing a rapport with a police officer," he said. "They are
able to go home and have conversations with parents about drugs,
alcohol and cigarettes. That's hard to do. At least when they
graduate from the program, they have a good attitude. I go to DARE
graduations, and I'm very encouraged, and I think we should be expanding it."