ARE OUR SCHOOLS DOING ENOUGH?

Critics Ask Whether Programs Aimed At The Young Have Lasting Effect

It's DARE graduation night at Woodward elementary in Richmond and there are
more parents than seats in the gym.

About 150 people are sitting in fold-out plastic chairs. Latecomers are
relegated to long, low wooden benches, back-breakingly unique to elementary
schools.

Two Mounties in full reds are there, the mayor is there, school officials
are present. The gym is decorated with posters -- "Dare to be drug free,"
"Dare to stay alive." Everyone is waiting for Robyn Anderson's Grade 5 and
6 students to file in and be honoured for their achievements.

It's a big night for the kids, the end of the 10-week program. It's a big
night for the police because this is the first group to come through DARE
((Drug Abuse Resistance Education) in Richmond. Next school year, all Grade
5 classes in the city will do it. Const. Annette Martin of Richmond RCMP
says the goal is to educate the kids before they get to high school. They
talk about making smart choices and about peer pressure. They talk about
alcohol, marijuana and cigarettes. They do not talk about crystal meth.

"It's more about choices in life," says Martin.

The students arrive and act out anti-smoking and drinking skits on stage.
The short plays feature themes such as "Drugs are bad, so just don't start."

Five students make speeches. One suggests that the DARE program should be
available to "adults stupid enough to abuse drugs."

The line gets a giggle from the crowd, but the truth is that tonight's
graduation marks the last formal, in-depth drug- abuse prevention training
of this duration and intensity these kids will get -- whether it works or not.

There is no uniform program in all B.C. high schools as concentrated and
focused as DARE, despite the fact that anti-drug groups have pushed for
such a program for at least five years.

A 2001 survey of students in Grades 8 and 9 by the Alcohol-Drug Education
Service found only ad-hoc, short-term and uneven drug education efforts in
B.C. high schools.

Some instruction was incorporated in the Planning 10 curriculum in 2004,
but very little.

Instead, the focus on drug prevention is shifting to lower and lower grades.

Vancouver and Surrey ran a pilot program this school year that addresses
drug issues with Grade 4 kids.

Insp. John de Haas, head of the Vancouver police units assigned to gang
crime, youth services and schools, questions the impact of those programs.

Asking a child's mind to make adult decisions is not effective, he says.

School-based drug-abuse prevention programs are not keeping kids away from
crystal methamphetamine.

"We're missing something," he says.

What's missing, de Haas argues, is evidence that well-intentioned programs
such as DARE cause behavioural change -- that the DARE message to
elementary school students about making safe and sound decisions with
alcohol and tobacco actually translates into drug avoidance in high school.

In fact, 2003 research by the National Institute on Drug Abuse found DARE
had negligible, if any, effect on the drug and smoking habits of 6,000
Grade 7 and 8 students surveyed.

An eight-year follow-up study on Grade 6 students from Kentucky who had
completed DARE, and another group which hadn't, found no difference between
the two groups when it came to attitudes and behaviours about drugs.

So de Haas and the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority are trying to find a
better model.

A multi-agency research project led by the authority is now examining the
whole question of drug-abuse prevention with an eye to developing more
effective tools for teachers and parents.

"We need,"de Haas stresses, "to design our programs on evidence."

For de Haas, the key to fighting drug abuse is not just to target kids, but
to focus on the entire community when modeling prevention efforts.