PARENTS FEAR END OF DARE EFFORT

Lansing Police To Cut Program Addressing Drugs

Lansing parents say the city's DARE program is too important to be cut and
want officials to look elsewhere to trim.

The police department announced Tuesday that it plans to eliminate nine
police positions - including the two that run Drug Abuse Resistance
Education - because of anticipated budget cuts.

"There has got to be other things they can cut," said Terri Render, who
watched her 10-year-old son graduate from the program Wednesday at Attwood
Elementary School. "It's very viable."

The national DARE program has been in Lansing for more than 15 years and
more than 1,400 local fifth-graders are expected to graduate this year.

But DARE has come under fire nationally from some researchers who say it is
ineffective. National officials recently revamped the curriculum and say it
improved the program.

Lansing Police Chief Mark Alley said this week he believes DARE is
effective but that the department needs to keep more officers on the street.

"We've made cuts that we believe are going to be the most transparent to
citizens," Alley said.

Render said the program benefits kids, especially those headed into middle
school where "they are exposed to so many things."

Eleven-year-old Dieanna Martinez is going to ask her fifth-grade class at
Forest View Elementary School to write letters to keep the program.

"DARE teaches kids to be ready for the future," Dieanna said. "Kids won't
be able to learn as much."

Denise Hallfors, who studied DARE while a professor at the University of
North Carolina, said there is little evidence DARE prevents drug use.

"It's not effective," said Hallfors, who now works for the Pacific
Institute for Research and Evaluation, a nonprofit research group in North
Carolina. "It sucks up a lot of money. A lot of programs that do work don't
get the money."

But preliminary results from a recent University of Akron study of the
revamped curriculum shows improvement. It found that kids in DARE were more
likely to find using drugs socially inappropriate.

About 26 million students in 80 percent of the nation's school districts go
through DARE each year. More than 50,000 police officers have been trained
to teach the program.

DARE was created in 1983 by the Los Angeles Police Department.

Other communities are cutting DARE to save money, said Audrey Martini,
director of outreach for Michigan State University's School of Criminal
Justice. MSU is the only school in the state that trains officers on the
DARE curriculum, Martini said.

"I get calls on a regular basis about county commissioners or someone
else's office wanting to cut DARE," Martini said. "It all relates back to
dollars."

Martini said when cities pull out of DARE, they are cutting preventative
measures. They should instead re-examine their needs to see if anything
else can be cut.

"It is an easy way out," Martini said.

(SIDEBAR)

Does DARE Work?

Supporters say the program has been revamped and that initial studies show
kids were more likely to find using drugs socially inappropriate and were
better at refusing drugs.

Critics say the program isn't flexible and has little effect on whether
kids use drugs or alcohol.

For more information go to the DARE Web site: www.dare.com.