IT'S BACK-TO-SCHOOL TIME FOR D.A.R.E., PLUS PROGRAMS

Programs Teach Dangers Of Drugs/Alcohol

If it's not D.A.R.E. expanding in Northeast Ohio, it's PLUS growing in
central and eastern Lake County, all aiming to help underage kids stay
away from illegal drugs and alcohol.

D.A.R.E. is Drug Abuse Resistance Education, founded nationally in
1983. PLUS is Peers Learning Usable Skills, established by the Lake
County Narcotics Agency.

D.A.R.E. started this academic year by showing up in Eastlake for the
newly merged Catholic school of St. Mary Magdalene of Willowick and
St. Justin Martyr of Eastlake. PLUS started its first full academic
year in the Perry School District while still operating in Mentor and
Kirtland school districts.

Among monitors of Sts. Mary Magdalene/Justin Martyr, which serves
students in kindergarten through eighth grade, is Eastlake Patrolman
Ralph E. Tanner, who is Ohio D.A.R.E.'s District 3
representative.

Tanner said D.A.R.E. classes in District 3 have been on the decline,
in part because of numerous federal agencies criticizing the national
program.

"We went from 17 lessons 23 years ago down to 10 now," Tanner
said.

Besides Eastlake, Willowick and Willoughby in Lake County, District 3
includes Ashtabula and Geauga counties.

District 2 serves Euclid and other eastern Cuyahoga County school
districts, plus some abutting counties.

D.A.R.E.'s District 2 includes other parts of Lake, Ashtabula, Geauga,
Summit, Trumbull and Mahoning counties.

PLUS began late last school year at Perry Middle School after citizens
and parents urged its start.

"I think we will be going very well," said Connie Bowler, a registered
nurse who is the school district's director of wellness and its
fitness center.

"Most important is what the kids' impression of the program is. That's
what really counts. Plus, the officers really run the entire program
with support from the middle school principal."

Tanner said he and other D.A.R.E. workers are proud of their work, but
have seen a few who still took drugs years later.

"We talk about responsibility and life," Tanner said. "A few of the
students, we saw again and again. But it was a definite minority."

D.A.R.E. gets some help through grants from the Ohio Attorney
General's Office.

"The state gives out handbooks and graduate certificates. It's a big
help," Tanner said. "We do give out some T-shirts and do fund-raisers,
and schools help us a lot. It's still working in western Lake County,
and we're still trudging."

John Germ, director of the Lake County Narcotics Agency, is also proud
of PLUS.

"D.A.R.E. only uses police officers to teach in school. That's all
well and good. But in the Narcotics Unit, we're not able to get enough
full-time officers to do it," Germ said.

So PLUS restricts its certified narcotics officers to a limited number
of schools, while D.A.R.E. often expands.

"I've got nothing against D.A.R.E. They're good. But we do everything
as good and maybe better than they do, I think," he said.

Germ's agency works closely with Trumbull, Ashtabula and Geauga
counties narcotics officers from the TAG Law Enforcement Task Force.

Lake County and TAG have worked closely in trying to help grade-school
students.

They've also worked closely the last two years in arresting a record
number of drug offenders.

That includes methamphetamine dealers whose homemade meth labs
especially affect children in Ashtabula and eastern Lake counties.

Though not 100 percent on the same page, Tanner and Germ are much more
amicable about their respective D.A.R.E. and PLUS programs than their
national counterparts.

Disagreements are reflected in a study called "The Effectiveness of
D.A.R.E.," written by David J. Hanson, professor emeritus of sociology
at State University of New York.

On the one hand, Hanson quoted anti-D.A.R.E. studies by university
medical experts and federal agencies.

The U.S. General Accounting Office, for example, said it found "no
significant differences in illicit drug use between students who
received D.A.R.E. and students who did not."

The U.S. Surgeon General and National Academy of Science found
D.A.R.E. "ineffective," the Hanson study said.

But the Chronicle on Higher Education quoted Glenn Levant, the
D.A.R.E. America executive director, as criticizing professors as
"academic frauds" in "voodoo science."

"The bottom line is that they don't want police officers to do the
work, because they want to do it themselves," Levant said in the
publication.

Reason magazine quoted another D.A.R.E. leader as disagreeing with
judging the program by studies: "Our strongest numbers are the numbers
that don't show up."

The D.A.R.E. Association of Ohio had the University of Akron perform a
2005 study of 3,150 11th-grade students who had gone through the drug
program.

"All in all, D.A.R.E. reduced substance use, increased peer
resistance, encouraged communication with parents and other
responsible adults, and increased positive views of the police," the
study states.

Besides PLUS, Drug Abuse Resistance Education still faces competitors
like the Life Skills Training Program, Project ALERT and Strengthening
Families Program.

But D.A.R.E. remains the largest such anti-drug organization in the
nation since the war on drugs was declared in the 1980s.