SAME WAR, NEW TRENCHES

During its 19 years of existence, the Drug Abuse Resistance Education
program has attempted to steer young students away from drugs and
alcohol, even as some critics have accused DARE of actually making
drugs more attractive. But the law enforcement officers who
participate in DARE are keeping up the good fight, doing what they can
to help young students stay drug free.

They're testing out a new drug-fighting strategy in the New Orleans
area that will feature fewer lectures and include high school
students, an age group DARE has traditionally ignored in favor of
those in elementary and middle schools.

The New Orleans area is one of six places in the country testing out
DARE's new curriculum. This area has certainly seen more than its
share of drug-related crimes in the last two years. The recent trend
of young men either shooting one another or maiming and robbing
innocent victims while in pursuit of their next heroin fix should have
everyone rooting for the new DARE initiative.

As with any other initiative, DARE ought to be judged by the results
it produces. Many criticisms of the program in the past have been
valid, because it hasn't been as effective as officials would like.

But standing by passively and watching children get hooked on drugs is
not an acceptable option, so the new shift in focus is warranted. If
the revamped program works well in our metro area and in other pilot
sites, it will be replicated elsewhere in the country. The new
curriculum is being used locally at one high school each in Jefferson,
Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard and St. Charles parishes and at the
middle schools that feed into them.

The focus on high school students is a welcome change. For while it's
not too early to talk to fifth graders about the ill effects of drugs,
talking to them when they're older makes more sense.

As supportive as he is of DARE, Capt. Lloyd Dupuy, a DARE officer with
the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's office, says it's unrealistic to expect
a program that targets fifth-graders to steer them away for drugs for
the rest of their lives. "It just doesn't work that way," he says.

Now that the focus has switched from younger students to those
slightly older and from adults lecturing children to those students
staging their own skits and small group discussions, the program
should be much more successful.

Well, it should be more successful if Louisiana comes up with the
money to pay for it. Schools across the state are currently dealing
with a $1 million shortfall because the tobacco tax the Legislature
designated to pay for DARE didn't become effective until August. That
budgeting delay has proved costly, but some local sheriffs are dipping
into their own budgets to provide the necessary funding for the rest
of this year.

It's good that they are doing so. The DARE program will never be 100
percent effective. How successful this new focus will be remains to be
seen. But right now at least, it deserves the support of the public
and continued funding from the Legislature.