STUDENTS SOUND OFF ABOUT DARE PROGRAM

Three months ago, Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson discontinued the
15-year-old Drug Abuse and Resistance Education (DARE) program. Since then,
parents of elementary-school students have worried that their children
won't be properly informed on peer pressure and refusal skills. To explore
these family worries, a Pulse reporter for the Deseret News asked East High
School students, "Just how effective was your fifth-grade DARE program?"

"It made me curious, not in a good way, about drugs." -- Hillary Herron,
senior

"I think it helps kids to think twice about drugs and their consequences."
- --Margaret Milikin, senior

"Fifth grade is too early. The brainwashing wears off by seventh grade." --
Joe Glade, senior

"The only reason I went to DARE was so I could get a DARE T-shirt and go to
Raging Waters for five bucks." -- Chris Eaton, senior

"I think it made me more aware of serious drugs (cocaine, speed, heroin).
But, I remember Safety Kids best. I learned more from peers." -- Misha
Buranek, senior

"I think the DARE program should have been taught later in life. We aren't
faced with those types of situations in the fifth grade." -- Roxanne
Kirkpatrick, senior

"I learned more about resolving fights than about drugs in my DARE
program." -- Bernadine Tanner, junior