DARE'S DOWNFALL

DARE, the most widely used drug prevention program in the nation, has been
less than successful, its leaders now reluctantly admit. But unwilling to
cede failure, they are retooling the program, with hopes of making it more
effective.

It took a string of studies to convince DARE of what many Americans long
sensed. Not infrequently, the ubiquitous DARE T-shirts are seen on
teenagers in an unusual mood. Research concluded that DARE's power to deter
drug use tends to evaporate by the senior year of high school. Some even
suggested that the DARE program actually encouraged drug use, by making it
seem more common than it was.

The fault with the 18-year-old program appears to have been its simplistic
message. Aimed at younger children, it employed police officers to preach
against drug use, while ignoring the complex factors that may induce
youngsters to experiment.

Millions of federal, state and local dollars later, DARE now plans to
target children in the seventh grade rather than the fifth. Instead of
lecturing on the evils of drugs, police officers will act more as coaches,
encouraging students to question their own assumptions about what it takes
to fit in, and helping them to handle peer pressure. Students in the ninth
grade will get a booster program.

Most Americans know that at least some youngsters are bound to experiment
with drugs. But they long for some tool or sea change that will reduce the
numbers.

What families teach their children (especially by example) remains the most
crucial factor in whether children take up drugs. But youngsters should
also be taught what role they unwittingly play in the scourge we have come
to call "the drug wars." In nations such as Colombia, the price for our
recreational appetite is widespread lawlessness, terror and death. And that
will remain the case so long as narcotics are illegal. This is not
something fifth-graders are likely to understand. But we ought to challenge
our teenagers to understand it.

The DARE program has been used in 75 percent of the nation's school
dstricts. But its days of easy money are over. Last year, the U.S.
Education Department announced it would no longer permit its dollars to go
to DARE, since there was no scientific proof that the program worked.
DARE's revamped program, supported by a $13.7 million grant from the Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation, will be under much greater pressure to deliver
results. That is a welcome step forward from the days of "just say no."