BRUNSWICK EXPANDS CRITICIZED DRUG CLASS

Determent Program Offered To Seventh- And Fifth-Graders

SHALLOTTE, N.C. -- Brunswick County school board members plan to
spend $50,000 this year to expand an anti-drug education program that
some studies say does not work.

In addition, school board members voted to begin a Drug Abuse
Resistance Education (DARE) program for Brunswick County
seventh-graders without having qualified educators review the curriculum.

"It is supposed to be better," said Reeda Hargrove, Brunswick County
Schools' director of student support services.

Hargrove said she was told the seventh-grade program had a new
curriculum, but that no school administrators had reviewed it before
school board members voted to spend the money for it.

DARE classes are offered to the county's fifth-grade students,
Hargrove said, and students who take it choose it as an elective at
the same level as physical education, music and art.

She said parental permission is not required for students to enroll
in the DARE courses, which critics have said may actually push
students to hard drug use by making no distinction between "soft"
drugs such as marijuana and more addictive substances such as heroin.

A 1994 study by the Research Triangle Institute in Raleigh looked at
eight, unconnected DARE effectiveness studies to see if any
conclusions could be drawn from a broad-based examination of the program.

"DARE's short-term effectiveness for reducing or preventing drug use
behavior is small and less than for interactive programs," Research
Triangle Institute researchers concluded, according to the
Raleigh-based agency's Web site.

A 1999 study by the University of Kentucky determined that the
long-term effect of the DARE program is negligible. Researchers
looked at students who had DARE classes 10 years earlier versus
students who had not had DARE education.

"Few differences were found between the two groups in terms of actual
drug use, drug attitudes or self-esteem, and in no case did the DARE
groups have a more successful outcome than the comparison group," the
study found.

The DARE program debuted in Los Angeles schools in 1983 and
proliferated through public school systems with little scrutiny
because, critics contend, elected officials felt good about doing
something aimed at curbing drug use among young people.

Now, however, some school systems, including one in Oakland, Calif.,
have voted the classes out of public schools.

Charlie Miller, Brunswick County school board vice chairman and chief
deputy of the Brunswick County Sheriff's Department, said he reviewed
the curriculum with DARE officers. Miller is not a trained educator.

He said the seventh-grade program is more in depth than that given to
fifth-graders.

"It goes into a little more of what happens" when users take illegal
drugs, he said. The seventh-grade program will include information on
character education and gangs that isn't a part of the fifth-grade
classes, he said.

Miller said he is aware of the criticism of the program and has told
Brunswick County's new DARE officers to track for two years the
fifth-graders who've taken the classes "to see if it's working."

Miller said his support of the program is based on the
recommendations of DARE officers.

Miller did not know if drug-related incidents at Brunswick County
schools have lessened since the DARE classes were first taught.

Robert Turner, spokesman for the school system, said the program was
first offered in Brunswick County schools about 20 years ago. He said
Hargrove is now researching the numbers of drug incidents in schools
through the years and did not have them Wednesday.