DRUGS OR DARE: AREA LAW OFFICERS AND ADMINISTRATORS STAND BEHIND D.A.R.E. DESPITE CONTROVERSY

Sikeston Department of Public Safety officer Shirley Smith disagrees with the naysayers who claim the Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or D.A.R.E. program, doesn't work.

"Until those people get into the classroom and see what's going on, they're not justified in what they're saying," she said.

Since it's creation in Los Angeles in 1983, the D.A.R.E. program has gone from being the end-all in drug-prevention programming to the scapegoat for increased drug use in children. Numerous studies have concluded that the curriculum, which is taught in all 50 states and around the world, has little to no lasting effect, and more children than ever are turning to drugs.

D.A.R.E. is a 17-week curriculum taught to fifth- or sixth-graders in the classroom by a uniformed police officer. Officers follow a strict curriculum to provide information about alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. They also provide strategies to help students resist peer pressure to use or abuse drugs.

Opposition to D.A.R.E. comes from many different avenues. Some people oppose the program because the cost is too high for a program judged to be so ineffective, while others believe uniformed police officers are not qualified to teach.

Still other parents are opposed to the "psychological indoctrination" of their children and say they should have the opportunity to "opt in" to programs such as D.A.R.E. They believe the curriculum spreads misinformation and encourages children to tell police about people -- even family members -- who abuse drugs.

Like Smith, other area D.A.R.E. officers said the program is effective in preventing kids from using drugs. People need to be realistic, they said, and realize that like any program, D.A.R.E. only helps those who want to be helped.

This curriculum arms students with accurate information about drugs and their effects, they said; the rest is up to the kids themselves.

"This may sound somewhat negative, but if we can just keep the good kids good, then we're accomplishing something," said Perryville Police Department D.A.R.E. officer Steven King.

Jeannie Dailey, Cape Girardeau Police Department D.A.R.E. officer, said drug use is a personal decision. "You can't reach every kid, you can just pass on that knowledge," she said. "It comes down to personal choice."

Officers and school administrators said the program could be scoring poorly in national surveys because those surveys focus on urban, inner-city areas or are otherwise biased in their samplings. The rate of success is higher and longer lasting in more rural districts, they said, so an even sampling is needed to decide if the program is working.

"The researchers never factor in social ills when they're blaming D.A.R.E. for not working," King said. "There's no way to determine how much higher the rate of use would be if D.A.R.E. wasn't in place."

Dr. Dan Tallent, superintendent of Cape Girardeau schools, said surveys can also be biased if they don't examine the long-term effects of D.A.R.E. beyond the teen-aged years.

"When you look at a program like this, you have to look at the lifelong attitudes," he said. "All of us have had a time in our youth when we may have strayed a little from the moral path. That's why it's important to look at attitudes in the long-term rather than just the actions during the teen-aged years."

Area officers agreed that any drug-prevention program needs reinforcement. They said D.A.R.E. is just a step in what should be constant drug prevention reinforcement coming from officers, teachers and parents. Even if D.A.R.E. was replaced with another prevention program, they said, it would only be successful for as long as adequate support was in place to help bring the drug prevention message home.

"As long as you're reinforcing it through the eighth grade, it's going to stick with the child forever," said Smith. "Nothing is guaranteed. All you can do is pray and hope that they have already made up their minds that there'll be consequences.

"The bottom line is: It's working here."