ANOTHER DOSE OF DARE

New version of drug awareness program targets ninth-graders

GULFPORT - Educators and law enforcers know that when it comes to drugs,
it's easier to prevent young people from starting to use them rather than to
make them stop.

That's why most school districts in South Mississippi participate in the
Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, one that teaches students the
dangers of drugs beginning in the fifth grade.

Students learn about the effects of alcohol, cigarettes and marijuana,
consequences of using the drugs and alternatives.

"There is no question DARE has an impact," Harrison County Sheriff George
Payne said. "I have kids who come up to me and tell me that they remember
what they were taught in DARE years ago."

The DARE program was developed in 1983 and is taught in 80 percent of school
districts in the U.S. and in 54 countries, impacting more than 36 million
children.

Until now, it was up to individual states to track DARE's success rate, and
even that wasn't required. But thanks to a pilot program sponsored by the
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Akron, ninth-grade
students will get another dose of DARE, and they will be tracked for five
years.

The Harrison County Sheriff's Department is one of seven areas in the nation
participating in this new program, and is the only law enforcement agency in
Mississippi taking part.

The pilot program is being implemented at D'Iberville High School.

The Sheriff's Department has seven full-time school resource officers in
middle and high schools throughout Harrison County.

"That's where you see the most problems," said Shannon Nobles, a sheriff's
deputy who works at D'Iberville High School and is also a DARE officer.

With the pilot program, Nobles said ninth-graders learn about the legal and
social consequences of using drugs, the effects of marijuana and ecstasy,
myths about drinking, nicotine addiction and how students can make a
difference in schools.

Nobles said the lessons encourage discussion among students and allow them
to make their own conclusions.

During a recent class, students talked about the myths associated with
drinking, as well as the consequences of underage drinking. The instructor
also showed students how police officers conduct field sobriety tests when
they stop someone suspected of drinking and driving.

Capt. Bonny Pesch recently retired from the Biloxi Police Department, where
she served as a DARE officer for 10 years, and she said while communities
likely will always have young people who use drugs, police officers and
schools have more ways now than ever to fight the problem.

"We're probably always going to have a drug problem," she said. "But we have
more resources and education programs than ever before. That's got to be a
positive thing."

Cpl. Kayetta Robert, also a Biloxi DARE officer, said the education must
continue as students grow older. That's why DARE's principles are reinforced
in the seventh and ninth grades.

"As they mature, the education and programs change with them," she said.
"You need to keep the program, but the verbiage changes. I think it's
necessary that it's a continuing thing."

Robert said DARE officers impress upon fifth-graders that actions they take
now can affect them the rest of their lives.

"They really and truly want to know what's going on," Robert said, "and they
want the information."