DOES D.A.R.E. WORK?

Yes, If Parents and Teachers Get Involved, Police Officials Say

HICKORY - When Adarryll Hopper was 9 years old, he dreamed of a wife,
two kids, a split-level house and his own business. He expected to
reach his dreams by the age of 35.

Now, he's 36 and lives in a one-room apartment. He's not married, and
there are no offspring.

Hopper was addicted to crack cocaine for 14 years. Not only did crack
postpone Hopper's dreams, but it ruined relationships with family and
friends and left him without a home, wandering the streets or staying
in hotels.

Hopper knew better than doing drugs. He took D.A.R.E. for three years
starting in the seventh grade at Burns Middle School in Cleveland
County and then in eighth and ninth grades in schools he attended in
Florida. But D.A.R.E. didn't work for Hopper because it wasn't
reinforced at home. Hopper's dad sold drugs, and his mother was
addicted to them. Hopper took his first drink of alcohol at 13. That
escalated to marijuana, and before he was 20, Hopper was addicted to
crack cocaine.

"I had too many outside influences," Hopper said. "I would leave the
classroom, the basketball court or studying, and I was around drugs
and alcohol all the time. I got pulled into it." Officials close to
D.A.R.E. say the educational program works, but help is needed from
outside the classroom.

D.A.R.E. is a Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, and in the
last few years has added curricula to include Define, Assess, Respond
and Evaluate to help students make good decisions, said Hickory
Police School Resource Officer and D.A.R.E. Instructor Paul Murphy.

Murphy has taught D.A.R.E. for 15 years in Hickory Public Schools.
He's currently school resource officer at Northview Middle School. In
Hickory, school resource officers also teach D.A.R.E. classes. Murphy
teaches seven classes of sixth-graders at Northview. He spends about
50 minutes with them once a week for 10 weeks. Until 2003, the
program was 17 weeks, he said.

Murphy believes the program works but he says he can't teach the
importance of saying no to drugs without help from teachers and
especially parents. "D.A.R.E. is supposed to be a cooperation program
between the police department, school system and parents of the
child," Murphy said. "It involves all three working together to
support the kids. If you don't reinforce what is taught, it can't be
successful. How successful would you be if you only took math for 10
weeks?" According to a 2005 study called Monitoring the Future, 16.5
percent of eighth-graders, 34.1 percent of 10th-graders and 44.8
percent of 12th-graders reported using marijuana. Among them, 74
percent of eighth-graders, 65.5 percent of 10th-graders and 58
percent of 12th-graders reported that smoking marijuana regularly was
a great risk. Yet, kids still say yes to tobacco, drugs and alcohol.
Paul Murphy asks his sixth graders, "Why?" "Because they think it's
cool," one kid says.

"To fit in with everyone else," another says. Then Murphy talks about
the health problems associated with smoking tobacco. It causes heart
disease and lung cancer, leading killers among Americans, he said.
Smoking or chewing tobacco turns your teeth yellow and makes your breath stink.

"Are yellow teeth and stinky breath cool?" he asks. Murphy is
passionate about his job and believes in the program. Running into
former parents and students reinforces his belief. Murphy sometimes
polices basketball games at Hickory High School. He says he often
sees parents who tell him their child stays away from risky behavior
because of what Murphy taught them in sixth grade. He still runs into
students who remember him. "I've walked the high schools (with school
resource officers), and students will come up to them and shake their
hand or give the officer a hug," said Steve Hunt, former sergeant at
Hickory Police Department and commander over school resource
officers. "In high school, that's not cool. D.A.R.E. does that."
Hickory Police Chief Tom Adkins says the department has no plans to
discontinue the D.A.R.E. program, as long as Hickory Public Schools
allows officers time in the classroom. In recent years, Catawba
County Schools and Newton-Conover Schools stopped teaching D.A.R.E.

Adkins wants to keep D.A.R.E. for its say no to drugs, tobacco and
alcohol policy, but he also believes in the relationship the students
build with instructors. Adkins says D.A.R.E. is a great way for
officers and young folks to interact and in a controlled and friendly
environment. Hopper, who's been clean for three years now thanks to
Exodus Homes, certainly wishes he had stuck with the lessons he
learned in D.A.R.E. Even though it didn't work for him, Hopper
believes the program works. "I look at D.A.R.E. like church: If you
use the resources taught to you, study and work hard, you will be
rewarded," he said. "You will be rewarded from D.A.R.E. because you
won't get addicted.

"Listen to your D.A.R.E. instructor," Hopper encourages young
students. "What (he or she) is telling you is not to hurt you or keep
you away from your friends, but to help you make the right decisions
and keep you from going down a black hole."