AREA DARE PROGRAM PRAISED

ELIZABETHTON - As DARE prepares to celebrate its 20th anniversary this
year, some pundits are questioning the effectiveness of the Drug Abuse
Resistance Education program that has become a fixture in many of the
nation's elementary classrooms.

While critics say DARE has failed to actually reduce drug use among
youngsters, teachers and students at one Elizabethton city school say they
are convinced the program has been a success locally.

"I have taught here for 12 years, and I firmly believe DARE has been
beneficial to a lot of children," Cindy Estep, a fifth grade teacher at
Harold McCormick Elementary School, said last week.

Estep said Sgt. Danny Hilbert - an officer with the Elizabethton Police
Department who teaches the DARE course - takes and "open and honest
approach" in informing students of the real effects of drugs.

"Despite what they see about drugs and alcohol use in the movies and TV, it
is not always funny or glamorous," Estep said. "Whether DARE works in the
long run, is a decision these students will have to make for themselves.
But you can't wait until they are 16 years old before you start talking to
them about drugs and alcohol."

Rikki Pritchard, 11, is among the fifth graders at Harold McCormick who are
in the final weeks of their first DARE program. Pritchard, quoting from
statistics cited in her DARE workbook, said most of her classmates will
refrain from taking drugs and alcohol.

"But 20 percent will do it just to get their minds off their troubles," she
said. "DARE has influenced me not to take drugs."

Her classmate, Courtney Smith, said DARE is just one of the many influences
that have convinced her to avoid drugs and alcohol. The 11-year-old said
her family has also been a factor in that regard.

"DARE teaches you to be drug-free," she said. "If you are not drug-free,
you won't be able to get a good education, go to college or have a nice job."

Smith and Pritchard are just two of the 26 million children in the United
States who now participate in the DARE program. The curriculum of the
10-week course - which was developed by educators and is taught by trained
police officers - stresses personal responsibility and teaches students
techniques for resisting peer pressure to use drugs and alcohol.

Advocates of the program - which was created by former Los Angeles Police
Chief Daryl Gates in 1983 - say there are more than 30 independent studies
supporting the effectiveness of DARE. The most recent study is one
published in the Journal of the National Medical Association. It suggests
that students who participate in the DARE program are five times less
likely to start smoking compared to youngsters who do not.

DARE has a number of testimonials from teachers, parents and police
officers touting the success of the program posted on its Web site,
www.dare.com. The nonprofit organization also points to studies like the
one conducted by a Ohio State University researcher who found that 97
percent of the teachers he surveyed in Illinois in 2001 gave the DARE
program high marks.

The Illinois study also found that 92.8 percent of parents believe DARE
effectively teaches children to say no to drugs and violence.

A growing number of national organizations, however, are questioning the
effectiveness of the DARE program. One such group is the Drug Reform
Coordination Network - a coalition of more than 21,000 drug law reform
activists, health care professionals and educators - which believes DARE
has been unsuccessful in meeting its goals.

"All the major research on the effectiveness of DARE shows that it has no
impact on the rate of drug use by children who go through DARE training,"
the organization states on its Web site, www.drcnet.org.

DRCNet also cites a 1993 study by the Research Triangle Institute and the
National Institute of Justice which suggested a statistical analysis of all
DARE research has found the program has had "a limited to essentially
non-existent effect" on drug use.

"The final edition of the largest evaluation of the DARE program has
concluded that the anti-drug program does not reduce drug use, and in at
least the category of pot, the DARE graduates smoked more frequently than
the control," DRCNet concludes on its Web site.

Such criticisms, however, were not on the minds of DARE students at Harold
McCormick last week. Instead, the students had number of questions for the
two 17-year-old visitors seated at the front of their DARE class.

"How many of your friends use drugs," was one of the questions posed to
Sarah Smith, a senior at Elizabethton High School, and Evan Lindauer, an
EHS junior. The two are graduates of the DARE program who have been tapped
to serve as role models to their younger classmates.

Lindauer said it is not always easy to spot a fellow student who is using
drugs.

"It's not really obvious," he said. "There are probably more (taking drugs)
than you think. Some people hide it very well."

As for himself, Lindauer said he has never been directly confronted by the
drug issue.

"All my really close friends are drug-free," said Lindauer, who is a member
of the track, swimming and football teams at the high school.

Likewise, Smith said she and her close friends are simply too busy with
their school work and extracurricular activities to be involved with drugs.
Smith, a standout on the Lady Cyclones basketball team, said she tries to
be a positive role model for her classmates.

"If I found a student taking drugs, I wouldn't stop spending time with
them," Smith said. "I would try to influence them not to use drugs."

Hilbert said he is delighted to hear such statements from former students.
Smith is a graduate of the first class that Hilbert taught at Harold
McCormick some eight years ago.

"When it comes to the Elizabethton School System, there is no doubt in my
mind that DARE had made a difference and continues to make a difference in
the lives of these students," Hilbert said.