Pubdate: Thu, 24 Mar 2005
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2005 Globe Newspaper Company
Contact:  http://www.boston.com/globe/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52
Author: Stephanie Vosk
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/dare.htm (D.A.R.E.)

DARE-ING TO GO IT ALONE

Funding axed, 125 communities still offer drug abuse-prevention program 
With a gun strapped to his hip and a radio mike perched on his shoulder, 
the veteran cop in dark blue wanted some answers. The sixth-graders had 
plenty. They raised their hands and shouted: "Alcohol!" "Tobacco!" 
"Marijuana!" Officer Stephen Plympton nodded, apparently satisfied that the 
16 kids in his DARE class at Norfolk's Freeman-Centennial School had 
absorbed the names of the "gateway drugs."

The DARE antidrug program is still alive in many communities west of 
Boston, despite questions about its effectiveness and the elimination of 
its state funding. It has survived thanks to local funding and private 
donations raised by police officers who continue to believe it's 
worthwhile. "If you can affect one kid's life, I think that's worth its 
weight in gold," said Plympton, who has been the DARE officer in Norfolk 
for the 14 years of its program's existence. "I can honestly say that's 
happened." The program is also continuing in Plainville, Lincoln, 
Watertown, and at least 17 other Globe West communities.

"It's been something the community's behind and the schools still want us 
to do," said Lincoln Police Chief Kevin Mooney, a former DARE officer. The 
Drug Abuse Resistance Education program began in Los Angeles in 1983. It 
was designed by the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles 
Unified School District to give fifth- and sixth-grade students the skills 
they needed to resist peer pressure to try drugs and alcohol. It quickly 
spread nationally and expanded to include upper grade levels. But in 2002, 
a General Accounting Office survey of academic studies concluded that the 
program was ineffective in preventing drug abuse. Six long-term evaluations 
of the DARE elementary school curriculum found "no significant differences 
in illicit drug use between students who received DARE in the fifth or 
sixth grade and students who did not," the GAO reported. State funding for 
the program was slashed in 2002 by acting governor Jane Swift from $4.3 
million to $200,000. The funding was eliminated in fiscal 2004 and 2005. 
And last year, Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey said she wouldn't recommend 
funding the program until its methods were reevaluated. Still, about 125 of 
the state's 351 communities continue to provide the program, said Domenic 
DiNatale, executive director of DARE Massachusetts, founded in 2002 as a 
not-for-profit fund-raising and training organization to help keep DARE 
alive. In 2002, he said, approximately 328 towns offered the program. "A 
lot of the towns were relying on the grants they were getting from the 
state appropriation," DiNatale said. "When you look at that money paying 
for the workbooks, or the kids' graduation T-shirts, or certificates, or 
pencils and pens . . . now all of a sudden that money's gone and it has to 
come out of your municipal budget. You have to say, from the chief's point 
of view, what do I want to do?"

DARE officers generally visit classrooms once a week and give talks. 
Students fill out workbooks, ask questions, and role-play with partners. In 
Norfolk, a town of more than 10,000, the state cuts "really ripped the core 
of the program," said Plympton.

He has been soliciting donations through the mail to keep the program 
going, and so far, it's worked.

"I just felt it was the best way to find out what kind of support that I 
had. And I have been very happy with the support I have received from the 
residents," he said.

But the funding cuts have meant that his lessons are now restricted to the 
sixth grade, as Norfolk, along with Wrentham and Plainville, decided not to 
fund the program in the regional middle school and high school. "If we had 
that [state] funding, I could definitely see those programs returning," he 
said.

In Plainville, Patrolman Jim Rockett has been visiting classrooms for 12 
years. He said his program is now a "no-frills" affair. "This year, I 
couldn't even afford workbooks," said Rockett, who still tries to spring 
for the DARE T-shirts that students have sported since the program's early 
days. He holds fund-raisers, including a yearly basketball game between 
officers and sixth-graders, to raise money.

When the town of around 7,500 was forced to rely on donations, however, 
lessons immediately disappeared in the higher grades. The program was 
generally restricted to sixth-grade students, which Rockett believes will 
make it less effective. For Lincoln, a town of about 8,000, eliminating the 
program when state funding was cut was also out of the question. Instead, 
the Police Department juggled its internal budget and sought donations to 
continue the program, which was begun there in 1990.

"We feel it's important, and we try to adjust our schedules and rearrange 
and cover shifts," Chief Mooney said.

Though he acknowledged the questions about the program's effectiveness, he 
said he believes there are clear benefits, including the creation of 
long-running ties between children and police, with some seeking officers' 
help as they grow older.

Watertown police also wanted to keep those relationships alive. Its 
program, which focuses on fifth- and seventh-graders in the town of 34,000, 
now also relies on the town budget and private donations.

"If you reach out to even one kid, I think it's worth it," said Lieutenant 
Michael Lawn. "It forms good relationships with the Police Department, too. 
The DARE officer gets to know all the kids, and that's an asset for both 
the Police Department and the schools."

Five of the six studies reviewed by the GAO in 2002 looked at students' 
attitudes about illicit drug use and their ability to resist peer pressure. 
None of them found any significant difference in the long term between 
students who had gone through the DARE program and those who hadn't. While 
two of the studies showed students had stronger negative attitudes toward 
drug use one year after going through the program, the effects diminished 
over time. DARE was bypassed this week when a private foundation awarded $1 
million in grants to several Globe West school districts to fight alcohol 
and drug abuse. Katie Lawler, a junior at King Philip Regional High School 
in Wrentham, said she has never tried drugs and credits the DARE program in 
the Plainville schools for helping her to say no.

"There's so many pressures out there to get you to do all different things, 
and you're caught in so many situations," said Lawler. "[The DARE program] 
shows you . . . the consequences that you'll face. You just realize what 
you're doing." Lawler said it was the activities and the field trips to 
places like the local prisons that solidified the lessons for her.

But Katie Ford, spokeswoman for the Executive Office of Public Safety, said 
the state currently has no plans to fund the programs again. Instead, she 
said, officials are looking at other types of substance abuse education. 
Ford said her office is working to put together a "Teen Team" program in 
cooperation with alcohol awareness groups, including Students Against 
Destructive Decisions and Mothers Against Drunk Driving, in which teens 
would educate their peers about the dangers of drugs and alcohol.

The "You Drink & Drive. You Lose" public relations and enforcement campaign 
also works to educate drivers across the state at key times, including 
holiday weekends and around high school prom time , Ford said. "We think 
it's great that these municipalities that do participate in DARE clearly 
feel that they are benefiting from it. And we would never tell them to 
stop," Ford said. "But as far as the statewide campaigns, we are directing 
our resources in a different direction."

DiNatale said the DARE program in the state has been strengthened since the 
cuts, with a new curriculum that focuses more on role-playing. Three years 
of a new five-year study into the program's effectiveness, by the 
University of Akron, have already been completed, and DiNatale said the 
results so far show that DARE is an asset to the communities that offer it. 
"Although we've lost programs over the years," he said, "we feel very 
strongly that the study is going to show that DARE is the way to go and 
that the towns that have dropped it will find some ways to bring it back 
in." Sonia Fitopoulos, a sixth-grader at the Freeman-Centennial School in 
Norfolk, said she felt she had learned a lot from her DARE class and she 
could learn even more if the classes continued into higher grades. "The 
things you learn here will help you when you're older," she said. "I think 
it would help you say no."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom