ANTI-DRUG PROGRAM HAS ITS PROS AND CONS

Kandy Meyers knows first-hand the harm drug addiction and abuse can do to a
family.

Her mother was a drug addict. "She tried many drugs, then found her
favorite drug, heroin. Every day was a challenge. I remember being as young
as 4, trying to get my mom to wake up from an overdose," Meyers said.

After reading criticisms recently about the Drug Abuse Resistance Education
(D.A.R.E.) program, Meyers decided to spread the word about another
anti-drug program, Narconon.

Meyers works for Narconon Great Lakes in Chicago and would like to
establish a rehabilitation center in Racine. She also would like to make
the group's drug prevention and education program available to the Racine
Unified School District.

"I saw first-hand what drugs really did. Many children do not see this real
life example," said Meyers. She and her husband, Thomas, a Racine native,
moved to Racine about four years ago to raise their family.

Narconon offers a series of presentations for grades two through 12. The
speakers, many of whom are former addicts, speak from their own experiences
with drugs and give a realistic picture of drug use.

The presentations do not replace any programs or curricula currently
offered by the schools.

Delaine Moe, Unified's student assistance and wellness coordinator, works
with the D.A.R.E. officers in the district. She's not familiar with
Narconon's drug education program, but she is familiar with D.A.R.E. and
its results.

"I've only gotten positive feedback from everyone involved, the students,
the officers, teachers and parents," Moe said. Moe thinks the newspaper
stories detailing D.A.R.E.'s ineffectiveness didn't present a complete
picture of the program.

"There are two points they ignore when they do surveys. They don't show
it's difficult to measure the benefit and outcome of prevention programs.
The other point is students respond to good teachers and we're fortunate
the officers here are excellent," Moe said.

While Racine County Sheriff's Department Deputy Steve Sikora is in favor of
anything that will help steer young people away from drugs, he is against
using former addicts as speakers in schools. Sikora is one of two D.A.R.E.
officers working in the school district.

Narconon, founded by William Benitez in 1966, is a non-profit organization
dedicated to eliminating drug abuse through prevention education and
rehabilitation.

Benitez was an inmate at Arizona State Penitentiary when he founded the
group. He was a heroin addict who couldn't seem to get off drugs using
traditional methods. After reading books by Scientology founder L. Ron
Hubbard and corresponding with him, Benitez applied Hubbards' principles to
his program.

Betsy Kippers, Unified's coordinator of health and physical education,
reviewed three Narconon videos, "The Truth About Kids and Drugs," "The
Truth about Drugs," and "Marijuana: The Myth."

The videos are used in areas that don't have trained Narconon speakers,
said Sue Birkenshaw, public activities supervisor for Narconon
International in Los Angeles.

"The videos are quite effective. They have sort of a curriculum that goes
with them for the teacher to use with the videos. The videos and our
presentations supplement what the schools are doing," Birkenshaw said.

She is working with Meyers to develop speakers in Racine to give
presentations at schools, businesses and community groups. Narconon
speakers and professionals from other organizations are trained at the
group's facility in Oklahoma, Birkenshaw said.

While the overall presentations might teach the students good
decision-making skills the videos alone do not, Kippers said.

"The speaker is very good. He engages the students, and the facts in the
anti-drug videos are very good, but they lack one essential piece that
students have to learn: decision-making skills. In terms of a school
setting I think there are a lot of good facts, but kids have to learn to
make good decisions and the videos don't show them how to do that," Kippers
said.

Meyers admits the videos don't stress decision-making, but that's not their
purpose. "The videos are to get them to think and ask questions. And
hopefully, the discussion with the teacher will stress making the right
decisions," Meyers said.

Initially, Meyers plans to offer the program at the high school level
because she feels the drug problem is escalating among teens.