DRUG PREVENTION PROGRAM IN MIDST OF A MAKEOVER

DARE's Effectiveness Has Been Questioned

A handful of schools in five New Orleans area parishes could help
decide the future of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, a
fixture in 80 percent of the country's elementary schools but under
attack in recent years.

A series of recent studies have branded the popular DARE program as
useless with no real impact on student alcohol and drug abuse.

In response to that, the University of Akron has embarked on a
makeover of DARE, which was started 19 years ago, and brings police
officers into classrooms to teach drug prevention to
fifth-graders.

New Orleans is one of six cities in a national five-year pilot program
to test the proposed new curriculum.

While elementary fifth- and sixth-graders will still get their weekly
visit from DARE officers, the pilot program's new curriculum targets
seventh- and ninth-graders, following them for five years. During the
study, researchers will survey the students annually to chart their
usage, attitudes and beliefs about drugs and alcohol.

One high school from Jefferson, Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, and
St. Charles parishes, and the middle schools that feed those schools,
are part of the pilot, said Vidal Vega, local coordinator for the
study. Other cities participating are Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles,
Newark and St. Louis.

The curriculum was developed by Dr. Zili Sloboda, who has a background
in drug prevention research. The $13.7 million revamp is being
financed by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in New Jersey.

Sloboda said the new curriculum focuses on middle and high schools
because that's when teens are most vulnerable to alcohol and drugs.

Shortened from 17 to 10 classroom sessions, the curriculum focuses on
less teaching, more coaching. Police officers no longer lecture.
Instead, they encourage students to come up with answers through
role-playing, skits and small-group discussion.

"We let them speak to us. They open the discussions. They participate
a lot more. I like that," said Corp. Suzanne Guaraggi, a DARE officer
in St. Bernard Parish.

The new curriculum also focuses on dispelling the notion that most
teenagers are already using drugs, a misconception that Sloboda said
can prompt younger students to use just to fit in.

Results from the first year in seventh-grade classrooms in the six
cities found small improvements in decision-making and resistance
skills, Akron officials said. More students said they thought using
drugs was inappropriate. Sloboda said it's still too early to come to
any conclusions, though.

With four years left in the study, it remains to be seen if the new
DARE will be embraced by its critics.

Perhaps the most damaging attack on DARE was a 1999 University of
Kentucky study that caught up with 1,000 students 10 years after
completing the program. Researchers concluded there was very little
impact on cigarette, drug and alcohol use, and in some ways, may have
encouraged it.

School districts and police departments across the country began
dropping the program, unable to justify the budget strain.

But law enforcement agencies in the New Orleans area have held on
strong to DARE and are excited about the improvements to the program.
They say it's an opportunity for children to form positive
relationships with police officers.

"I stand behind the program not just as a DARE officer but also as a
parent," said Sgt. Burley McCarter from the St. Charles Parish
Sheriff's Office. "It's definitely the best program available."

Other local officials said DARE suffers because it is the most popular
drug prevention program in the country, making it an obvious target.

The problem, said Capt. Lloyd Dupuy, a Jefferson Parish Sheriff's
Office DARE officer, is that critics want the program to be a magic
wand -- one touch in elementary school, and children say no to drugs
and alcohol for the rest of their lives.

"It just doesn't work that way," Dupuy said.

Last year, the Louisiana DARE Evaluation Project conducted its own
study, surveying more than 4,000 students. Those who participated in
DARE had significantly lower rates of drug use, participated in more
extracurricular activities and tended to fail less often than their
peers.

But as the national pilot program for DARE continues, officials said
it's important to remember that whatever happens to DARE, the program
will never be a cure-all.

Zarus Watson, as associate professor of counselor education at the
University of New Orleans, said DARE can do little to serve the 55
percent to 65 percent of school-age children already exposed to or
abusing drugs and alcohol. In those cases, Watson said, active
intervention like family or individual counseling is needed.

"We're better off with it than without it, but it's not going to solve
the problem," he said.