DARE KEEPING JACKSON STUDENTS OFF DRUGS

Police Sgt. Howard Hammers says the best option for kids these days is to stay off drugs. Hammers is in his fourth year as the DARE officer for the Jackson Police Department so he knows what he's talking about.

DARE, the program that tries to snuff teenage substance abuse before it starts, was developed in the 1980s in Los Angeles.

In 1992 it came to Jackson, and Hammers, who jokingly calls himself a pioneer, became its first DARE officer.

Hammers spends one hour each week instructing a "hands on" class of sixth-grade students at the Jackson Middle School.

Sixth grade is the perfect time to get it into students' heads that drugs are "definitely not the way to go."

After sixth grade, the kids head to junior high, where the pressure may be more intense.

"I show them there are consequences that go along with the choices they make."

He shows them the negative aspects of drug abuse and how it "makes absolutely no sense to put these things knowingly in their body."

Last week, the lesson involved learning about gang violence and what an integral part drugs play.

"Most gang violence is drug related," Hammers said. "A lot of the robbery and stealing is done to get drugs.

"Drug abusers are desperate. They don't make it by working a regular job so they have to steal -- sometimes even from family members -- to get their fix."

There are many consequence to drug abuse but death is the ultimate price, he says. Hammers hopes his class is enough of a deterrent to keep kids off drugs and help avoid that.

The class consists of several activities. The children participate in role-playing skits, use work books and learn drug-related definitions. But the most important lesson they learn is how to say no when drugs are offered.

"When a peer, often a friend, asks them, they don't know how to say no," he said. "We show them."

There are many ways kids are asked to use drugs, and for each way there is to ask, Hammers says there is a way to say no.

Hammers calls them resistance techniques, teaching children to say no to such peer pressures as "friendly" to the much more violent "heavy" peer pressure.

Friendly peer pressure is usually from a friend or acquaintance who tries to persuade others to "casually" use the drug.

In heavy peer pressure, Hammers said, those trying to get youngsters to use drugs go as far as threatening to "beat them up" if they won't try it.

The best defense to friendly peer pressure is the broken record technique. This is simply repeatedly turning down an offer to use drugs. "After saying no, no, no, no, no, no, they usually they get tired of asking," Hammers said.

There are a couple of ways of dealing with heavy peer pressure. Hammers says the best way is to avoid any situation where drugs might be involved.

Another way is through what Hammers calls "strength in numbers.

"Having like-minded friends who don't want to use drugs."

But Hammers said that children who have friends using drugs do not want to alienate them.

"They may come out after being dragged down into the trap of using drugs and be perfectly good friends," Hammers said, adding it only makes good sense to stay off drugs.

"In order to maintain a healthy body and healthy life, you cannot introduce drugs into your life."

But Hammers reluctantly admits that DARE doesn't keep all children off drugs.

"Obviously, they're not all going to come around to my way of thinking," Hammers said. "But, it's like they say, if we help one kid stay off drugs, we're successful.

"But I want to try to help as many as I possibly can to avoid drugs and violence."

DARE's funding, according to Hammers, is beginning to run dry. Earlier this year, the Jackson Police Department was unable to get the $1,000 grant that they had been getting.

"Now, we're having to look to alternatives for funding," Hammers said. The Jackson Elks and the Optimist clubs have recently donated money.

The money provides DARE students with certificates, T-shirts and special activities that the children go through, including a celebration when they finish the final lesson.

Hammers, a native of Cairo, Ill., has been with the Jackson Police Department for 12 years. He received his DARE training at the Missouri Highway Patrol Academy in Jefferson City.