SAYING YES TO DARE

A Program That Puts Cops And Kids Together Isn't Easy To Oppose.

Just Say No to drugs? It's harder to just say no to DARE, which
stands for Drug Abuse Resistance Education.

Long Beach City Council members fussed among themselves this week
about changing this or that detail, but ended up voting 6-1 to find
some way to pay for restarting the somewhat controversial program in
local schools.

We say somewhat controversial because there is little clear evidence
that DARE gets results. Studies have showed it doesn't, but DARE
revised its curriculum and disputes the negative findings.

You'll notice that schools don't usually volunteer to pay for DARE.
Maybe that has something to do with professional educators standing
aside while part-time retired cops with two weeks of drug-resistance
training conduct their programs.

The only other evidence we have to offer is purely anecdotal, and it
consists of high praise by some police officers and snickering by
some students who've seen the program up close. One of the primary
criticisms is that displaying drug paraphernalia to 10-year-olds
stirs more curiosity than aversion to using drugs later in life (like
two or three years later).

Another is that T-shirts and various other merchandise promoted by
DARE America is sold by for-profit companies (with a modest
contribution to DARE, of course).

Charity Navigator, the reliable nonprofit rating agency, gives DARE
America only two stars, meaning that it isn't incompetent, but needs
improvement. Still, a charitable rating agency doesn't have the means
to assess program effectiveness, so that's of marginal help.

There's no reason to fear that DARE will do serious harm to the
fifth-graders it serves, and any program that puts school kids
together with police officers in a classroom has the potential for
good. That leaves the question of who pays.

Which is where council members come in. Two suggested funding sources
cleverly make it hard for a politician to say no. One puts a
surcharge on towing a vehicle involved in a drug or drunkenness bust,
and the other on business licenses that sell tobacco, alcohol or
spray paint. Get it?

Councilman Gary DeLong cast the lone no vote on principle. City Hall
already has more expenditures than revenue in its future, and even if
new fees whack unpopular targets, the money ought to go for programs
meriting the highest priorities. Not a bad principle.

The best argument for DARE might be that it won't take much money at
all. Local DARE board members, to their credit, pledged $35,000,
which leaves just $13,000 to go. Cities lose that much in rounding
errors on little programs you've never heard of, although a better
solution would be for a nonprofit to foot the bill.

The remaining concern is that DARE should do no harm. That's not
certain, but it does seem manageable.