DARE REDEFINES ROLE IN FIGHT AGAINST DRUGS

It's a sunny Tuesday morning in a fifth-grade classroom at Jonesboro
Elementary School, and Bessemer police Officer Alethia Tate has
captured the attention of 20 students.

She prompts the children to list possible choices to make when
somebody offers them alcohol. Just say no. Tell the person with the
alcohol to leave. Have them put the alcohol away.

None of the children has mentioned the obvious: Have a drink.

"I know somebody's going to try it," Tate tells the class. "The
choice your friends make may not be good for you."

This is the new DARE, drug abuse resistance education. The
just-say-no message has been transformed into a more realistic
just-make-the-right-decision message.

Taught by uniformed officers, the national DARE program marks its
25th anniversary this year and is going through a makeover. The
changes come after studies showed that DARE failed to change
students' attitudes about drugs and alcohol. Some critics even said
the program encouraged drug use, a kind of "forbidden fruit syndrome."

It was disappointing news, considering the government had spent
billions of dollars on the program.

"DARE was popular but ineffective," said Chris Ringwalt, a senior
scientist at the Chapel Hill Center of the Pacific Institute for
Research and Evaluation. Ringwalt sits on a scientific committee that
has been involved in redesigning the DARE curriculum so it is based
upon proven approaches.

Much of the new curriculum has been implemented, and preliminary
studies are positive. But only time will tell whether it really works.

"DARE has yet to be found effective," Ringwalt said.

Nonetheless, gone are days when a DARE officer stood before a class
for an hour and preached against drugs.

"We are no longer the sage on the stage, but a guide on the side,"
Ringwalt said.

Double DARE crises:

In addition to a crisis of confidence, DARE in recent years has faced
a money crisis.

John Lindsey, a regional director for DARE America, said the federal
government has cut funding to the program by 80 percent over the past
four years. Before the cuts, the federal government at times spent
more than $500 million a year on DARE, and states kicked in money, too.

Lindsey said the budget cuts weren't surprising, because the federal
government has also cut its overall funding for local law enforcement
by about 70 percent.

"The pie is only so big," Lindsey said. "The money that was going to
state and local law enforcement is now going to homeland security."

Fortunately for DARE, in 2001 the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
decided to spend $13.7 million to help DARE retool its program. The
new model has been evaluated at the University of Akron, and final
results of that study are expected to be announced in coming months.

Lindsey said DARE is now interactive and fast-paced.

"No longer can we show kids a drug board and say, 'Take a puff of
marijuana, and you're going to die."' Lindsey said. "Kids are much
smarter these days. You've got to show them the health effects and
the impact on their body from illegal drugs and from smoking."

In addition to revamping its core curriculum, DARE has also developed
supplemental lessons that allow the program to be customized. These
lessons focus on things such as bullying, gangs, methamphetamines or
prescription drug abuse.

DARE officers are now facilitators, a role that hasn't come
naturally, Lindsey said. "It was real tough because cops, myself
included as a former cop, we like to come in and take command and
speak for an hour and answer a few questions at the end."

Over the past three years DARE has retrained about 20,000 officers.
The program has broadened its focus from drugs and is now addressing
some of the root causes of drug abuse along with providing security to schools.

DARE downsized:

At the height of its popularity and funding, hundreds of police
officers in Alabama were involved in the DARE program, said Lonny
Boshell of Moundville, an officer with the University of Alabama
Police Department and state coordinator for DARE.

With federal and state budget cuts, the number of DARE officers
dwindled to 50, but there has been a resurgence of interest, Boshell
said. About 70 police officers in Alabama are trained in the new DARE
curriculum.

"We're having a lot of agencies expressing interest again or coming
back on board if they can find funding within their cities or
counties," Boshell said.

DARE provides first-class training and a way for police officers to
make a positive impact on children, he said.

"You go in and pour your soul into those kids," he said. "That's what
it's all about."

Bessemer Police Chief Nathaniel Rutledge is a longtime supporter of
DARE. He teaches classes at the high school level and has two
officers who teach DARE pretty much full time at other schools.

"For me, it's still Policing 101," he said. "It's still relationships
and having your hand on the pulse of the community. If you don't deal
with the students while you can, then you'll lose them. By the time
they get a little older, you'll have a major headache."

He said DARE has broadened its focus because drug abuse is often a
product of things such as poverty, unemployment and absent parents.
"We try to deal with the sources of the problem," Rutledge said.
"We've taken our hands off our kids too far and are letting them grow
up on their own."

So he has officers such as Tate who spend much of their time with
children. She teaches classes, attends PTA meetings and participates
in Neighborhood Watch programs.

Sometimes she hangs around after school and follows children home,
just to make sure they are safe and to see what kinds of things they
encounter. "You've got to build that trust," she said.

She tells children that drugs, alcohol and tobacco are bad, but she
also listens to them talk about what they want to be when they grow
up and what they worry about.

"We all have choices," she tells the fifth-graders. "We all know
right from wrong."