DARE RESULTS QUESTIONED : ANTI-DRUG MESSAGE FADES AFTER KIDS LEAVE GRADE SCHOOL, STUDIES SHOW.

Byline: Jim Brunner Associated Press 

The nation's most popular and best known drug-education program gets decidedly mixed reviews.

Some researchers say DARE's core curriculum, taught to kids in their last year of elementary school, doesn't stick with them as they get older.

Others say the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program works, especially if the elementary school lessons are followed up with booster sessions later.

A University of Kentucky study released in June found that DARE lessons taught in elementary schools stay with children into the seventh grade, but fade after that.

The five-year study by Richard Clayton, director of the university's Center for Prevention Research, tracked drug use and attitudes among 2,000 students in Kentucky's Fayette County, comparing DARE graduates with students whose schools did not offer the program.

By the 10th grade, Clayton found there was little difference between DARE participants and those whose information was obtained in school health classes.

DARE officials dispute those findings, saying the study was based on an old curriculum that has since been revised.

DARE's new curriculum for fifth- and sixth-graders received a ``B'' in a June report card issued by Drug Strategies, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit group that seeks to identify effective drug- and alcohol-prevention strategies. DARE's programs for children in kindergarten through fourth grade and for those in seventh through 12th grade earned a ``C.''

``I think the jury's out on DARE,'' said Drug Strategies President Mathea Falco in a recent telephone interview. ``We don't have any evidence that the new curriculum actually prevents drug, alcohol and substance abuse.''

DARE has been enormously successful in getting police and community leaders more involved in drug education, Falco said.

Six of the 47 drug-prevention programs rated by the group received an ``A.''

The best programs help teens recognize the pressures that lead people to try alcohol and drugs, the Drug Strategies evaluation states. It praised efforts to involve parents and the community, as well as brainstorming, role-playing and other interactive teaching techniques.

DARE executives point to a study by Ohio State University researcher Joseph F. Donnermeyer, which found that students exposed to DARE were less likely to fall into a ``high risk'' category for alcohol and drug abuse.

Donnermeyer, a professor of rural sociology, conducted a statewide survey of 3,150 11th-graders from 34 schools.

The study, released this year, found that 15 percent of students with no exposure to DARE fell into the ``high risk'' category. The percentage fell to 12 percent among students who took DARE in elementary school and to 10 percent for students who had follow-up sessions in later grades.

But other research found little protection provided by DARE.

A review of eight previous studies by scientists at Research Triangle Institute at Research Triangle Park, N.C., concluded that DARE imparts a large amount of information, but has little or no impact on students' drug use.

``DARE's limited influence on adolescent drug use behavior contrasts with the program's popularity and prevalence,'' says the study published in the September 1994 issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

The results were criticized by DARE officials and by the study's sponsor, the Justice Department's National Institute of Justice, which played down the negative aspects and issued a news release stressing the study's finding that DARE is popular among students, teachers and parents.

Similarly, the California Department of Education criticized a 1995 study it paid for when the researchers determined that DARE and other school-based anti-drug programs were ineffective in discouraging alcohol, drug and tobacco use.

More than 40 percent of the students questioned in a random sample responded ``not at all'' when asked whether their decisions to avoid intoxicants was influenced by such programs.

As students grow older, they grow more distrustful of drug-education programs in schools, that 5,000-student, 240-school study found.

``We're at a critical crossroads in decision-making on drug policy,'' said Joel Brown, a researcher at the Berkeley-based Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation who coordinated the study.

``These programs initiate a cycle of dishonesty that children pick up on at an early age.''

While just 10 percent of elementary-school students had a negative or neutral attitude toward the programs, that jumped to 90 percent among high-school students, the study found.

That's because teens get conflicting information about drugs from their classmates, Brown said. When they see that not all drug and alcohol users become addicts, they become skeptical of the ``just say no'' message they get from teachers, he said.