ANTI-DRUG PROGRAMS FACE OVERHAUL

The U.S. anti-drug campaign is a resounding drumbeat pounded by a
procession of teachers, police, ministers, soldiers, former gang
members, athletes and celebrities to the tune of more than $2 billion
a year.

No other generation has heard such a barrage of anti-drug messages.
But more American youths have been injecting, snorting and smoking
illicit drugs in the past several years. The number of 12- to 17-year
years. The number of 12- to 17-year-olds who try heroin is at historic
peaks. Marijuana and cocaine use by high school seniors is up sharply
from the mid-1990s.

Now, a major upheaval is taking place in drug education, spurred by
the obvious question:

Do the programs work?

This year, for the first time, prevention programs that receive
funding from the U.S. Department of Education are being asked to use
pre- approved methods or collect proof that their existing programs
work. To keep their funding, the programs must be able to prove by
2001 that their methods are effective in inoculating Americans against
drugs. Because of the mandate, prevention efforts familiar to millions
of Americans are being documented, scrapped, revamped or completely
reinvented.

"We've been asking what feels good to adults, when we need to be
asking what works for children," said Richard Clayton, a prevention
researcher at the University of Kentucky. "Drug use is not a simple
phenomenon. It will not be solved by simple slogans and bumper
stickers and T-shirts."

For years, critics say, taxpayers, corporations and private
foundations have been slinging money to anti-drug programs that are
based on simplistic notions about drug use. Now researchers say that
although the programs have good intentions, they are not backed by
scientific proof of effectiveness.

"It's as if somebody was saying, `Let's sit down and write a drug
program,' " said Roy Griffin, coordinator of prevention programs for
Fort Worth school district. "In many instances, programs were naive,
and schools were literally throwing their money away."

Among the flaws that researchers cite:

* Many prevention programs concentrate on building self-esteem,
although the reasons why young people use drugs are still unknown.

"Until we know the causes of drug abuse, we won't know what to
target," Clayton said.

* Some programs are based on outdated information about drug use, and
often the teachers are uninitiated in the street terms, methods of use
and facts about drugs. Many North Texas school districts, for example,
did not include information about heroin in drug education classes
until after young people began dying of overdoses.

* By overemphasizing the negatives or using scare tactics, programs
lose credibility with some young people.

"They told my little sister that you'd get addicted to marijuana the
first time, and it's not like that," said Tiphoni Fennell, 17, an
11th-grader at Eastern Hills High School in Fort Worth. "You hear
that, and then you do it, and you say, `Ah, they lied to me.' "

* Programs that work in one community might not be appropriate for
another.

"There might be a big difference between what works in Fort Worth,
Texas, and El Paso, Texas," said Julie Stevens, director of the office
of prevention at the Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse.

Schools and community organizations are struggling to implement better
programs and to weed out those recently deemed ineffective. Many are
finding it difficult, though, to let go of traditional tactics even
when experts say they do little to stop young people from
experimenting with drugs. At the same time, community leaders fear
that some worthwhile prevention efforts will slip through the cracks
because their programs aren't "scientifically proven."

"There is a real threat to our communities that there are many good
programs out there and someone can come in and say, `You're not
supported by research, so you're not funded,' " said Cathey Brown,
executive director of Rainbow Days Inc., a Dallas-based nonprofit
organization that provides drug prevention services.

Pulled in opposite directions by fear and complacency, communities are
struggling to adopt effective programs while listening to the voices
of parents, educators and researchers who are demanding to be part of
the decision-making process.

The challenge is to resist the temptation to hail every new prevention
program as a silver bullet.

"A lot of people are starting to mimic programs that are backed by
research, but the prevention field is still young enough that no one
knows if we have all the proven answers yet," said William Hansen, a
prevention researcher in North Carolina.

Taking the stage at an elementary school alongside a new intervention
specialist, Arlington teen-agers caution hundreds of students that if
they smoke, they are sure to "stink" and be unattractive to
prospective dates.

"Do you want to smell bad?" a young person warns. "It gets in your
hair and your clothes, and it ruins your teeth."

At Durham Elementary/Intermediate School in Southlake, two men dressed
in suspenders and cheap loafers are prancing across a stage while 400
fifth- and sixth-graders cheer them on.

"Some people smoke and take dope, but we find better ways to cope,"
James Caldwell, alias Homer Morris, sings as a plastic lizard and
binoculars jerk wildly from his suspenders.

After delivering a sobering anti-drug speech to an auditorium full of
Dallas elementary school students, Staff Sgt. Gary Thompson of the
Texas National Guard breaks into a song.

"It's about committing to doing the right thing," he said of the song.
"Maybe these kids will remember the song at the right moment and it
will help them make the right choice and not do drugs."

Thousands of anti-drug programs blossomed after President Reagan
declared war on drugs in 1986.

Communities began clamoring for help in maneuvering through the maze
of federal, state, corporate and foundation programs to select the
best. The demand finally led to a push for prevention efforts backed
by strong scientific evidence.

"A lot of communities started saying, `Help! What do we do?' " said
Liz Robertson, chief of the prevention research branch for the
National Institute on Drug Abuse. "They were doing some of these seat-
of-the-pants kind of programs without any sort of proof that they worked."

As the federal government began to call for more accountability, the
chant was repeated in Texas.

Recently, a committee of Texas senators, formed to examine spending to
combat gangs, scrutinized 25 state-funded agencies and found that
they spend an estimated $668 million a year on prevention programs
aimed at all delinquent behavior, including drug abuse.

With such a hodgepodge of funding aimed at prevention, some programs
might be unnecessarily duplicated and others overlooked, committee
members warned.

"Programs should have measurable objectives and goals," said state
Sen. Royce West, D- Dallas, who served on the committee. "If they're
not measured and evaluated, then they should not be funded."

This year, the Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse began asking
all prevention providers applying for state funding whether they can
support their efforts with research.

That posed a hurdle for the STAR Council on Substance Abuse, which
serves a mostly rural, five-county area around Stephenville, 60 miles
southwest of Fort Worth.

STAR Council requested $213,000 for new prevention efforts. But the
request was denied after the proposal received a low rating, pointing
to the difficulties organizations face in adopting new programs. Now,
area counselors are bracing for a year without state-funded prevention
programs.

"It's unfortunate that we weren't funded," said Barbara Gaume,
executive director of STAR Council on Substance Abuse. "We believe for
the good of the children and their families, someone needs to provide
prevention services here."

In Texas, Drug Abuse Resistance Education -- the most popular drug
prevention program -- is responding to new requirements by trying to
expand its program into junior high and high schools. At the national
level, D.A.R.E. officials have been meeting with their critics and
with federal officials to plan a pilot program that would blend
scientifically proven methods with its nationwide delivery network.
Area districts are also searching for better programs. The state
anti-drug curriculum, Education for Self Responsibility, was developed
in the early 1990s and has been shoved aside to make way for DAVE,
Drug and Violence Education.

The old curriculum became a dust collector for unmotivated teachers
because it was cumbersome and students didn't respond, educators said.

DAVE is being lauded as "teacher-friendly" and compatible with
virtually any subject matter, from math to English to science.
Teachers can download it for free on the Internet, and officials in
Grapevine-Colleyville, Arlington and Northwest school districts are
hailing it as the best state-endorsed drug prevention product yet.

"Every teacher in every school will be trained to teach it," said
Linda Cegiel, who is in charge of drug prevention in the Eagle
Mountain-Saginaw school district.

In addition, area school districts are scrambling to justify their
older programs. In the past few weeks, educators have been compiling
dozens of evaluations, lists and surveys to send to researchers, in
hopes that their prevention programs will meet the new federal
criteria for research-based funding.

Those efforts may not be enough to convince government agencies that a
program should be spared.

Leaders of many of the traditional anti-drug programs, such as the
Just Say No campaign and self-esteem building classes, say they are
confident that their efforts work because of the feedback they get
from students and parents.

"The way you decide whether you're having an impact or not is the
relationship you build with the kids," said Sgt. Mike Brown of the
Euless D.A.R.E. unit. "If they come to look forward to you being
there, that's a fairly good indication that you have a successful program."

But programs are truly effective, researchers say, only if they have a
lasting effect in preventing young people from using drugs -- ideally
through adulthood.

To gauge the effects, many area school districts ask students to
anonymously report their drug use. But the self-reported surveys can
provide inaccurate information because students may be embarrassed to
tell the truth, researchers say. Some area young people agreed.

"What percent do you think answers truthfully?" Cegiel recently asked
four students who serve on an anti-drug committee.

"Ten percent," ]17-year-old Erica Tenorio, a senior at Diamond Hill
High School in Fort Worth, said with a shrug. "They write down
something that they think you want to hear so that you will leave them
alone."

Many programs are now turning to long-term studies of effectiveness.
But some are conducting their own research, raising questions about
the objectivity of the results.

"There is no independent way to verify results," said Clayton, the
Kentucky researcher. "We need a technological breakthrough."

Despite concerns about how to measure effectiveness, researchers are
hailing a handful of "research-based" programs as promising.

These programs arm young people with decision-making skills to resist
drug abuse and other deviant behavior. They also recruit every part of
the community in the fight.

With this in mind, 11 state-funded pilot programs are being tested in
communities across Texas, allowing researchers to gauge effectiveness
and community support.

"None of these programs were designed to just plop into the
community," said Robertson, of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

One new effort, Life Skills, is being used in all Garland middle
schools as a state-funded pilot program. On its own, Fort Worth has
started using the program in its middle schools, and Keller school
district is considering it.

In Life Skills, students are taught personal, social and drug
resistance skills. They attend 15 classes in the first year, 10
"booster" sessions the second year and five the third year.

All Stars, another pilot program, is being tested in Lubbock, Abilene,
Snyder, Midland and Paris. It is aimed at sixth- and seventh-graders
and tries to promote characteristics that are believed to help young
people stay away from drugs. Students take 12 classes and each meets
individually with a class instructor to talk about committing to a
goal.]

The new prevention programs can be contentious for some educators and
parents, though.

Lessons can be so broad that many times the word "drug" isn't even
mentioned, critics say. And some programs begin in kindergarten,
raising objections from some parents that children will be frightened
because they are too young.

Some hard-liners say that drug education must return to the days when
it conveyed a tough message and reinforced it with tough action.

"Those programs are not going to work until they really start bashing
the drugs," said Della Brooks, spokeswoman for Sister Soldiers, an
organization of women that is fighting to end what it views as the
oppression of African- Americans and is involved in a wide range of
youth issues.

Still, Americans cling to a strong belief that drug education is the
best way to reduce the use of illegal drugs. Researchers at the
Harvard School of Public Health reported in March that the public
believes anti-drug education in schools is more effective than
increased funding for police to fight the drug problem. Americans also
are willing to pay more in taxes to fight the drug problem, the
researchers reported.

"There's a lot of bad myths out there: Only bad students do drugs.
Only kids that dress in black are doing the drugs -- those are the
druggies. That's not the truth," said Jackie Lawrence, co-chairwoman
of the Joint Drug and Alcohol Awareness Committee in Southlake. "What
it's going to take is education."

Karen Brooks and Mike Lee contributed to this report.

Marisa Taylor, (817) 685-3819 Send your comments to
marisataylor@star-telegram.com

Yamil Berard, (817) 685-3813 Send your comments to
berard@star-telegram.com

Checked-by: Patrick Henry