NOW MANY `JUST SAY NO' TO DARE IN SCHOOLS

Program Fighting Loss Of Funding, Police, Schools

As DARE America celebrates its 20th anniversary, the nation's most widely
used school-based drug prevention program is struggling with a credibility
crisis that has devastated the organization financially and threatens its
survival.

Illinois DARE officials predict half the schools in the state offering the
program will drop it by the end of this year. Police departments in Skokie,
Chicago Ridge and Peoria already have dropped the program, and officials in
Des Plaines and Carpentersville are considering eliminating it.

Like many such programs, Drug Abuse Resistance Education is struggling with
drastic budget cuts at the state and local levels. But DARE's problems go
deeper than the fiscal crisis.

Over the past decade, a flurry of studies--by the U.S. surgeon general and
the General Accounting Office, among others--found no significant
difference in drug use between DARE graduates and students never exposed to
the curriculum.

Researchers expressed concern that the program's "Just Say No" premise and
accompanying scare tactics were too simplistic. They said kids exposed to
conflicting messages about drug use outside school were not deterred by the
exaggerated dangers of drugs often conveyed in DARE class.

The negative reviews dramatically slowed contributions and federal funding
to Los Angeles-based DARE America, according to officials of the non-profit
organization that operates the program. Since 2000, DARE America has
wrestled with a multimillion-dollar deficit, organization spokesman Ralph
Lochridge said.

Although DARE America continues to receive a $2.5 million training grant
from Congress each year, the flow of federal funds to community and school
DARE programs through state prevention agencies has slowed to a trickle,
officials said.

Ryan Cut State Funding

Before leaving office this month, former Illinois Gov. George Ryan
eliminated $1.5 million in state funding to pay for DARE student workbooks
and officer training, officials said. The cut coincides with the launch in
the fall of a DARE curriculum that will require new books and training in
excess of the $1.5 million originally budgeted, said Steve Millar,
president of the Illinois DARE Officers Association.

"We're predicting by year's end we'll lose 50 percent of the Illinois towns
teaching DARE," Millar said.

A recent letter from the Illinois State Police DARE training center to DARE
officers stated: "Due to the unexpected reduction in our federal funding,
this will be the last time we will be able to supply teaching materials for
you."

If state funding is not forthcoming, already strapped police departments
will be looking at bearing the cost, said Limey Nargelenas, spokesman for
the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police.

"Frankly, we've had a lot of discussion among police chiefs about cutting
the program altogether," Nargelenas said. "If we don't get the federal
funding, we're not going to pay to send officers to the state for [DARE]
training."

Another source of DARE funding dried up in 1998, when the U.S. Department
of Education started requiring recipients to use research-based programs
with proven track records, said Bill Modzeleski, director of the
department's Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Program.

Modzeleski said DARE is not considered effective and is not on the
department's list of recommended "exemplary and promising" programs.

Founded in 1983, DARE quickly was hailed as a major advance in the war on
drugs. With its catchy "Just Say No" slogan, it became a household name,
supported by every president since Ronald Reagan. Today, it reaches 25
million children a year, Lochridge said.

In the late 1990s, however, research highlighting the program's
inadequacies began to influence officials responsible for community safety
and budgets.

UIC Study Critical Of DARE

A 1998 University of Illinois at Chicago study commissioned by the state
police found DARE had no effect on students' drug use when they reached
high school. A 1999 University of Kentucky study found that DARE failed to
have an effect on students' drug use 10 years after their participation in
the program.

In 2001, a National Research Council report commissioned by the White House
surveyed research on DARE and concluded the program has "little effect" on
kids' drug use. That same year, a report from the U.S. surgeon general's
office concluded DARE has "little or no deterrent effect on substance abuse."

A University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study published last month in
Prevention Science concluded not only that DARE was ineffective, but also
that it is "not a very good use of taxpayer money."

The drumbeat of criticism has anecdotal support too.

Chicago Ridge dropped DARE last year because after 13 years of DARE
education there was no corresponding decrease in drug arrests in the
community, Police Chief Tim Balderman said.

"In fact, we had an increase in arrests, all DARE graduates," he said. "I
can't tell you how many kids told me DARE introduced them to drugs. The
problem with DARE, other than that it's a multimillion dollar conglomerate
in the business of selling T-shirts, is that it takes the burden off
parents to raise their kids."

With its future in peril, DARE America partnered with the University of
Akron in 2001 to develop a new, state-of-the-art substance abuse prevention
curriculum and test it nationwide. The five-year project is financed by a
$13.7 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

"We want to teach kids not just to say `No,' but how to do so effectively,"
said Zili Sloboda, a researcher on the project. The curriculum, which will
debut in the fall, will focus more on the biology of drug use. It also will
be shorter--10 weeks as opposed to 17 weeks--and more interactive, with
DARE officers leading pupils in discussions rather than lecturing to them,
she said.

Jeffrey Merrill, professor of psychiatry at Robert Wood Johnson Medical
School, believes DARE will survive not because of the new curriculum, but
because of DARE officers' loyalty and dedication.

"They bring such excitement and dedication to the program that most local
programs have become self-sustaining," he said.

In a recent survey of more than 100 DARE officers, many reported working
unpaid overtime and dipping into their own pockets to support the program,
Merrill said.

Round Lake Beach Police Officer Sandy Molidor juggles weekend fundraisers
and cajoles donations and supplies from businesses to bring DARE to
hundreds of 5th graders in Lake County. She knows this year will be a
greater challenge, but she plans to persevere.

"I'm in a jam," Molidor said. "But I'll beg and borrow whatever I can.
Helping kids through DARE is the joy of my career."

This year, with no state money for training or books, Tinley Park DARE
Officer Rich Adamski might have to purchase fewer pencils and rulers for
his students. He also plans to leave the DARE logo off students' T-shirts.

But he won't eat fewer lunches with the youngsters or forgo answering the
more than 60 e-mails he gets monthly.

"DARE or no DARE, this is about helping kids," Adamski said. "That's what
matters."