DARE MAY BE NEAR END

Parents, Suffolk Officials Debate Effectiveness, Future Of Program

Sporting matching T-shirts emblazoned with the bright red
"D.A.R.E." logo, dozens of Copiague fifth-graders clapped slightly out
of time to a thumping rock beat. "D, I won't do drugs ... A, won't
have an attitude ... R, I will respect myself ...I will educate" they
pledged in song, as camera-toting parents looked on proudly Wednesday.
But the graduation ceremony for the Drug Abuse Resistance Education
program at Susan E. Wiley Elementary School may be one of the last if
Suffolk County Police Commissioner John Gallagher gets his way. Citing
studies questioning whether DARE works and a new school curriculum
that may make the program redundant, Gallagher wants to drop the
program by this fall in favor of other prevention initiatives, which
he also says are cheaper. County Executive Robert Gaffney has said he
will support a change.

But rumors that DARE is in danger have begun to filter through local
school systems and PTA networks, touching off a budding protest
movement among parents and educators who believe the program works and
are loath to let it go. This week, the Half Hollow Hills Council
Parent Teacher Association delivered some 13,000 letters to county
officials to demonstrate their support for the program, which sends
uniformed police officers into classrooms to teach students about
staying away from drugs. "They have Half Hollow Hills [parents ] to
contend with," a determined Nancy Schwartz said. Parents in other
districts, including West Islip and Copiague, also are beginning to
mobilize to try to save DARE. Schools in western Suffolk have offered
DARE, a national program founded in Los Angeles in 1983, for a decade.
Some East End town police departments also provide DARE. Nassau County
has provided its own 9-week program, Peer Resistance Instruction Drug
Education, in schools since 1985. In Suffolk, many parents and
students believe strongly in DARE. Recent DARE graduate Ellen Buglione
raved about the T-shirts, the stuffed lion prizes and the graduation
ceremony with diplomas in Copiague. "We learn," said the 11-year-old,
"but we have fun." Ellen's mother, Lisa Buglione, said she didn't see
why new civic lessons should supplant DARE. "You can never repeat
those issues too much," Buglione said. But Gallagher, who intends to
sketch his plans for DARE before the county legislature's public
safety committee on Jan. 24, said other drug-prevention initiatives
would be more efficient and would save money.

Salaries for the 33 officers and one sergeant assigned to DARE now
total more than $3.5 million a year. But Gallagher noted that the
department is short-staffed, and that other officers frequently must
work overtime to cover the patrol duties that the DARE officers could
be performing. Police had no estimate of how much the overtime costs.

Beyond the issue of cost, Gallagher said a new state anti-violence law
mandates that schools teach civility, citizenship and character education.

Suffolk also will soon unveil a new K-12 tobacco-prevention and health
program. "Many of those components ... would be redundancies and
duplicates of DARE-the only thing missing is the uniformed officer,"
said Gallagher, who intends to keep sending some officers to talk to
students about drugs.

Gallagher's effort to end DARE is part of a sweeping reorganization of
the police department that the commissioner hopes to implement over
the coming year. He wants to improve efficiency by civilianizing or
decentralizing specialized units.

But Legis. Fred Towle (R-Shirley) charged that Gallagher was "doing
this as a political response to the fact that the legislature cut the
overtime budget." Gallagher denied the accusation. In a move to cover
large police pay hikes mandated by a recent arbitration award, the
county legislature in November reduced Gallagher's requested budget.

Meanwhile, in the national debate over whether DARE is effective in
preventing teens from experimenting with drugs, different camps cite
conflicting statistics and studies, some indicating that DARE is
effective and some that it isn't. Many critics deride DARE as a
feel-good program that falsely lulls educators and parents into
thinking that they are doing something about the drug problem.

One long-term study by the University of Kentucky in 1999 showed that,
10 years after going through DARE, 1,000 adults were no less likely
than a control group to have used drugs.

But school officials and parent groups that support DARE said a police
officer telling students about drugs carries more weight than a
teacher delivering the same message.

Port Jefferson school board president Kenneth Gaul described as a
"collateral benefit" the rapport students develop with an officer.

Gallagher didn't deny the benefit of such "good P.R." But he said, "I
don't know ... if bonding is worth a $4 million hit to me."