DAYTON OFFICIALS MAY SCRAP D.A.R.E. ANTI-DRUG PROGRAM

DAYTON - Dayton may kill its D.A.R.E. anti-drug program because of growing
evidence it does not prevent drug abuse among schoolkids, police Chief
William McManus said Thursday.

"Recent studies have raised questions about whether we could be putting our
resources to better use, but we haven't decided to cut the program yet,"
McManus said.

If Dayton cuts D.A.R.E., it will return its $64,000 annual grant for the
program from the state attorney general's office.

The seven police staffers - one sergeant and six officers - in the program
would be re-assigned to street patrol.

McManus' statement came a day after Cincinnati City Council voted 6-3 to
stop funding the program in area schools once its contract expires in December.

The Drug Abuse Resistance Education program trains police officers to teach
elementary school students to recognize and avoid the pressures that lead
to drug abuse.

More than a dozen national studies have shown that the program does little
to prevent substance abuse among students. The latest study, issued
Saturday by researchers at the University of North Carolina, disclosed that
programs such as D.A.R.E. with "just say no" messages have not yielded
results that schools should expect.

"There's no scientific rationale whatsoever for maintaining D.A.R.E. in the
schools," said Denise Hallfors, a substance abuse prevention researcher at
the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, a nonprofit group. She
was at the University of North Carolina when she conducted the research.

"It's not a very good use of taxpayer money," she said.

Charles Parsons, executive director of D.A.R.E. America, said Hallfors'
study refers to D.A.R.E.'s old curriculum that is no longer used.

The program began in 1983 as a joint effort between the Los Angeles Police
Department and the Los Angeles Unified School District.

About 80 percent of the nation's school districts use D.A.R.E., but the
number is dropping. Seattle and Spokane, Wash.; Austin and Houston, Texas,
and Omaha, Neb., have stopped using the program, amid doubts about its
effectiveness.

Regionally, the D.A.R.E. program has its supporters.

Children from Xenia, Beavercreek, Fairborn and other Greene County
communities spent this week at a camp designed to reinforce D.A.R.E.
principles.

The camp, arranged by the Greene County Sheriff's Office, is meant to
reward D.A.R.E. participants, officials said.

Greene County D.A.R.E. programs rely heavily on fund-raisers and grants.