EXPANDED DARE PROGRAM SHOWS PROMISING RESULTS, RESEARCHERS SAY

An overhauled version of the much-maligned DARE anti-drug program shows
promising results in early trials, researchers said, suggesting that lessons
once reserved for fifth-graders could be reborn someday for pupils in
elementary school through high school.

Researchers found that seventh-graders in six cities who took part in the
new curriculum were more likely to find using drugs socially inappropriate
than a control group, were better at refusing drugs and had fewer
misconceptions about how many of their peers use drugs. They were also less
likely to say they would use inhalants.

"It shows us that the program is doing what it intended to do, and in a very
significant way," said Zili Sloboda, an epidemiologist at the Institute for
Health and Social Policy at the University of Akron.

The results were being released today by the university.

Sloboda, who led the study, said that it's too early to tell whether the new
program will have a significant effect on drug use but anticipated that a
follow-up program in high school will help children stay off drugs just as
the pressure to use them begins in earnest.

"These kids are prepared now," she said. "Now we've got to reinforce that
when they enter the ninth grade."

Researchers studied about 15,500 seventh-graders, some of whom took part in
the new curriculum and others, in a control group, who didn't. They plan to
follow the students until their junior years in high school.

The Drug Abuse Resistance Education program was created by police officers
in Los Angeles in 1983, to teach fifth-graders about the dangers of drugs.
The program has been implemented in 80 percent of school districts, but over
the past few years, critics have said that it doesn't work.

A study last August by the University of North Carolina found that several
top anti-drug programs, including the original version of DARE, were either
ineffective or hadn't been sufficiently tested.

Other researchers have found that illegal drug use among teen-agers has
remained level or decreased over the past several years, partly because
adults are warning students about drug use and encouraging kids to nurture
other interests.

The new DARE curriculum will target students not only in fifth grade, but
also in seventh and ninth grades.

Sloboda said that the new program also will involve more lifelike situations
and help students confront peer pressure more effectively.

The study, financed by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is following
students in Detroit; Houston; Los Angeles; Newark, N.J.; New Orleans; and
St. Louis.