DARE TO LOOK ELSEWHERE FOR SAVINGS

It's easy to assume little Jimmy is getting the "don't do drugs"
lecture at home.

But what if he isn't?

What if little Jimmy's big brother has a profitable business in street
pharmaceuticals? Or if his mother uses medication of her own making to
keep her energy up so she can meet the demands of the day?

Who will talk to little Jimmy about the dangers of drug, alcohol and
tobacco and the peer pressure to use them if he lives with a
grandmother who's working full-time and raising three grandkids?

D.A.R.E. officers will.

Since its inception in 1983 in Los Angeles, the Drug Abuse Resistance
Education program has expanded to all 50 states and between 40 and 50
countries. The program in Leon County has been in business for 19
years, and now reaches about 3,000 pupils in 29 area schools. Nine
officers from the Tallahassee Police Department (one of them working
only part-time with the program) dedicate 10 weeks to educating fifth-
and sixth-graders about the dangers of drug, alcohol and tobacco use
while directly introducing children to law enforcement under positive
circumstances. These officers divide their time between the program
and working on active investigations.

Local critics of the program - which the city says it could save about
$30,000 by cutting - have been quite vocal about its purported
ineffectiveness in keeping kids off drugs, arguing that these lessons
are the responsibility of parents, not law-enforcement officers or
teachers.

In an ideal world, that would be a given. But we live in a world of
broken and blended families with over-scheduled kids and too many lax
parents. We cannot afford to assume each child is getting the
life-skills education he or she needs. The threat to our children
worsens everyday with ever-inventive and attractive drug concoctions
like "cheese heroin," which has killed 21 Dallas-area teens in the
last two years.

D.A.R.E. promotes a three-fold education - involving law enforcement,
parents and schools - to help kids make the right decisions when it
comes to drugs. Some children - the ones whose parents do not have
time to look over their homework and fail to show for parent-teacher
conferences; the very ones who sit next to your child - are missing
the foundation of that education. Without D.A.R.E. and school
participation, they'd miss the lesson all together.

If the City of Tallahassee is really so desperate for money as to cut
programs like D.A.R.E., we have a suggestion: recruit former addicts
to recount their battle stories for our fifth-graders. It's an
education that is sure to be more lively than that offered by trained
police officers, though without the positive introduction to law
enforcement and certainly far less safe.

Every cause that comes under city-budget review started from a good
idea. But few have the potential to be as essential and far-reaching
as catching a kid on the brink of accepting a dare that may cost his
life.

Keep this D.A.R.E. alive.