Copyright 1997 New Times, Inc.  
                            New Times Los Angeles
                            March 20, 1997, Thursday
SECTION: Features
LENGTH: 5376 words
HEADLINE: The Truth About D.A.R.E.;
The big-bucks antidrug program for kids doesn't work
BYLINE: By Denise Hamilton
 BODY:
   Joel Brown is a respected researcher with a Ph.D. in education and a master's
degree in social work who studies adolescent development, public health, and
school programs. In 1992, Brown was living in Los Angeles and earning almost
$50,000 a year as a senior evaluation research scientist at Southwest Regional
Laboratory (SWRL), a quasi-governmental organization in Los Alamitos. He was
also lecturing at UCLA and contributing to studies funded by the National
Institute of Drug Abuse. In short, his professional picture looked rosy.

   Then came the request that changed his life.

   Brown's lab wanted him to look over a study it was conducting for the
California Department of Education and make recommendations before researchers
went into the field. The three-year, $3-million study had been ordered in 1990
by the state legislature to examine costs and evaluate the effectiveness of
California's Drug, Alcohol, and Tobacco Education (DATE) programs. Although DATE
includes Red Ribbon Week and other antidrug events, the lion's share of drug
education tax dollars goes to DARE, the vaunted L.A.-based program that sends 
uniformed police officers into classrooms to teach kids about the dangers of
drugs and alcohol. DARE has grown phenomenally in the 15 years since its
inception and today is taught in 75 percent of the nation's schools, as well as 
in classrooms in 48 other countries.

   After reviewing the proposed study, Brown recommended adding interviews with 
school officials and students. The lab agreed, and Brown plunged into that part 
of the research, becoming one of several lead investigators and eventually being
listed as one of the DATE study's authors.

   From the beginning, it was clear that this would be a complex and
cutting-edge effort. At Brown's direction, researchers visited 50 school
districts up and down California and interviewed 388 superintendents, DATE
coordinators, curriculum directors, principals, teachers, counselors, and
community members. They also questioned 200 fifth- through 12th-grade students
broken down into 40 "at risk" and "thriving" focus groups and 5,000 randomly
selected students in grades seven through 12. It was the first time a major
study had asked students--the target of all that drug education--what they
thought of antidrug curricula. But interviewing students was a controversial
step in drug education research and one that raised concerns when it came time
to publish findings.

   By 1995, Brown's five-researcher team had completed a 68-page report titled
"In Their Own Voices: Students and Educators Evaluate California School-based
Drug, Alcohol, and Tobacco Education (DATE) Programs." The report concluded that
California's drug education programs, DARE being the largest of them, simply
don't work. More than 40 percent of the students told researchers they were "not
at all" influenced by drug educators or programs. Nearly 70 percent reported
neutral to negative feelings about those delivering the antidrug message. While 
only 10 percent of elementary students responded to drug education negatively or
indifferently, this figure grew to 33 percent of middle school students and
topped 90 percent at the high school level.

   To those who study drug education policy, Brown's conclusions had a familiar 
ring. In the past five years, a growing body of research across the United
States has found that DARE is hugely popular with parents, educators, police, 
and younger children but has little success keeping kids off drugs. In general, 
researchers say this is because DARE relies heavily on a traditional,
lecture-driven format instead of peer-driven interactive learning. And some
parents fear that detailed lectures describing different drugs and their effects
actually give children the idea that rebelling against authority and trying
drugs would be cool.

   Moreover, an examination of statistics suggests that DARE is failing. For
instance, between 1992 and 1995--a time when the U.S. government spent a record 
half-billion dollars to educate youth about the dangers of drugs--teen marijuana
use climbed 141 percent nationally.

   But instead of Brown's findings being publicized and used to overhaul drug
education, a funny thing happened in Sacramento. State officials immediately
attacked the report, saying that its methodology was flawed--a bizarre
contention because the Department of Education's Technical Advisory Board had
approved the methodology in the first place. Later the state added that Brown's 
report was not part of the DATE study and thus was never intended for
publication--another whopping equivocation since "In Their Own Voices" analyzed 
the DATE student interviews and drew conclusions from them. On top of that, here
was a study mandated by the legislature and paid for with tax money: Shouldn't
its results be widely disseminated and discussed?

   But as Brown was about to find out, drug-policy research was a no man's land 
strewn with stalled careers. Many scientists--even those lauded by their peers
and published in prestigious academic journals--had found themselves ostracized 
for reporting research critical of DARE.

   Today, former fast-tracker Brown cannot get work at research organizations
that rely on governmental funds. His annual income has shrunk by two-thirds. He 
has run through $12,000 in savings and ekes out a living consulting and writing 
scholarly books. The reason: The professional integrity of Brown and his team
has been impugned repeatedly by state officials--all because the researchers
reported what students told them.

   "It's the most significant research in a coon's age, but I don't think you'll
find Joel Brown getting any more state contracts," says Rod Skager, a
professor emeritus at UCLA's Graduate School of Education who conducts the
biennial California attorney general's study on drug use and has come to Brown's
defense.

   The attacks on Brown have not been limited to his reputation. He has also
received threatening E-mail and anonymous phone calls, including two from people
who identified themselves as police officers. "You'd better watch your ass," one
reputed officer warned before hanging up.

   For Brown, known by colleagues as a deeply ethical man, the personal and
professional attacks have been devastating. "All I'm trying to do is good
research," says the 35-year-old scientist, who has moved to Berkeley to start
his life over. "I never imagined the extent to which politics could subvert and 
stifle important research. And it's sad, because ultimately, it's the kids who
suffer."

   As Brown found out, going up against the powerful commissars who determine
drug education policy for the United States can be perilous. That's because the 
noise over drug education in today's America is deafening. Only the uproar
surrounding abortion is louder, but at least with abortion, there's a bona fide 
debate.
                                                                                
   No such forum exists with drug education--either you're in favor of programs 
such as DARE or you're the enemy. And drug education receives billions of
government dollars each year. The DATE study found that in California alone,
taxpayers shell out about $400 million annually, or $83.87 per student, to
support school-based drug-prevention programs. Last fall, the political
platforms of Bill Clinton and Bob Dole sounded almost identical when it came to 
drugs: Get tough. Zero tolerance. Just say no. It seems that the juggernaut of
public hysteria launched during the Reagan administration keeps right on
rolling. Nobody wants to be perceived as soft on the drug menace.

   So when Brown's team turned in its report in 1995, the politically
unpalatable conclusions immediately drew fire. The report also drew the ire of
powerful pro-DARE forces, whose extensive public-relations and intimidation
campaigns against critics have only recently come to light. In a March 4
article, The New Republic documents a systematic campaign of persecution against
scientists, PTA groups, parents, and anyone else who questions DARE's
effectiveness.
 
   Ralph Lochridge, a spokesman for DARE America, the umbrella organization
that promotes DARE worldwide, denounces The New Republic's piece: "It's
ridiculous and false. DARE is not about threatening people and silencing
people. We're about trying to save kids' lives."

   It's true that no evidence exists that DARE America took direct action to
muzzle Brown's report, but many believe that the California Department of
Education did. Such claims by Brown's supporters prompted the CDE to issue a
prepared statement: "CDE is not suppressing this report. CDE never intended to
publish this report. It was commissioned for internal use only."

   The statement went on to say that Brown's report was not part of the DATE
study and that three of five independent researchers who reviewed it "found the 
design to be significantly flawed and the quality of the writing weak and
identified instances where findings and recommendations were not supported by
the data contained." According to the CDE, one reviewer questioned whether
students in focus groups would speak honestly with classmates present. "Don't
ask elementary and middle school kids what they need in prevention education,"
wrote another. "How would they know?"

   Spokeswoman Jana Kay Slater, a consultant to the CDE's Comprehensive School
Health Program office, had no answer when asked why the department authorized
Brown's research in the first place if the study's design was "significantly
flawed." She referred a reporter to the prepared statement, which did not
address that point.

   The fact remains that Brown's report was a political hot potato for the state
because it contains recommendations that deviate from the federal edict that
drug prevention education must provide a "clear and consistent message that the 
illegal use of alcohol and other drugs is wrong and harmful." This is called the
"no-use" message. But Brown and his colleagues urged the CDE to adopt a more
realistic "harm-reduction model." While not condoning drug use, that model would
accept that some kids are going to experiment with drugs and alcohol and suggest
effective ways to help them.

   As one student told the research team: "If it is shoved into you that you're 
a terrible person when you smoke marijuana, you kind of want to back away from
the education process because they've already made a judgment upon you." The
student went on to say that a more effective technique would be to say, "OK, you
guys do it, let's help you."

   Students told researchers that instead of helping kids with drug problems,
school officials often suspend or expel them. And youths saw contradictions
between the no-use message they heard in the classroom and what they saw around 
them, such as family members drinking wine with dinner or friends smoking a
joint on the weekend and seeming not to suffer ill effects. Students felt drug
educators weren't telling them the whole story. Typical was this exchange:

   "They lie to you so you won't do drugs ," one youth told an interviewer.

   "They think you're dumb," said another.

   "Do you think that works?" asked the interviewer.

   "No." (The kids laugh.)

   Instead of lectures, students wanted more interactive, in-depth panel and
confidential discussions with outside drug educators. They wanted to talk to
former drug abusers and to those who had experimented with drugs.

   "In Their Own Voices" urged educators to dispel three myths: that students
are naive, that any adolescent substance use is deviant, and that most
adolescents go on to become substance abusers.

   The conclusions were reached only after three difficult years of work. In
1993, while Brown's team was still analyzing the student data, SWRL issued two
reports, then halted work on the study, saying it had run out of money. That
same year, Brown left SWRL for a better job as project director and senior
scientist at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE), a think
tank in Bethesda, Maryland. But he and his team volunteered to continue working 
for free on the DATE interviews. Says Brown: "It sounds really corny, but I had 
made that promise to the kids that their voices would be heard, and I had to
keep it."

   In April 1994, Brown and a group of PIRE associates won a one-year, $100,000 
contract to finish work on one portion of the student data. Brown briefed the
state frequently on his team's progress and in August spent nearly $1,000 of his
own money to visit Sacramento to discuss the report. With the CDE's permission, 
Brown taped the meeting, in which a CDE official asked him to prepare the
finished report "in such a way that it will be easy to read for the lay public
or whoever is wanting to take a look at it."

   This appears to contradict the CDE's claim that the report was intended "for 
internal use only." And there are other discrepancies. Slater claims that the
department asked Brown to recommend two reviewers who could independently
evaluate the report. Not surprisingly, the CDE spokeswoman says, those two
scientists found merit in Brown's study, while the three others found it to
contain serious flaws.

   The CDE claims that Skager was one of the reviewers suggested by Brown, but
Brown says he did not know Skager at the time. Reached at his home in Northern
California, Skager also insists that the CDE contacted him independently.

   "That's a goddamn insult," Skager says of the CDE's assertion. "He did not
nominate me to review his study, and I resent being made to sound like his
patsy. My contact with Joel began afterward, when I called to compliment him on 
the study." In fact, Skager was so impressed with "In Their Own Voices" that he 
began using it in his adolescent-development classes at UCLA.

   For almost a year, Brown's report languished in bureaucratic limbo. Then in
May 1996, State Sen. John Vasconcellos waded into the fray and met with Brown
and CDE officials to attempt some kind of resolution. According to Rand Martin, 
Vasconcellos's chief of staff, the CDE discussed issuing a white paper on
Brown's findings that could be sent to school districts. But it wound up
rejecting the idea, saying it didn't have enough staff, even though Brown
volunteered to do the work for free. The CDE then promised to set up an advisory
committee to review each element of the report. But 10 months later, Brown and
Vasconcellos have heard nothing.

   "I don't know what to make of their silence," Vasconcellos says. "I ran for
office with the purpose of challenging sacred cows, and this is one that should 
be challenged. We're spending hundreds of millions of dollars, and the public
needs to know if DARE works or not."

   While the state has rejected "In Their Own Voices," several respected
academic journals have published the research. In addition, Educational
Evaluation and Policy Analysis published a paper in March in which Brown's team 
suggests that not only do California's drug education programs not work, but
they may actually promote drug use--because of the students' belief that those
delivering the antidrug message cannot be trusted.

   Brown's report is also available on the Internet through the Lindesmith
Center, a think tank in New York that promotes broadening the national debate on
drug policy. Its Web site is
http://www.lindesmith.org/lindesmith/tlcbrow.html. "When the government is
spending hundreds of millions of dollars on something that doesn't work,
something is clearly wrong, and people should know about it," says Ethan
Nadelmann, director of the Lindesmith Center.

   Marsha Rosenbaum, who directs the center's Western office in San Francisco,
adds, "Whenever you hear the phrase 'flawed methodology,' your antennae should
go right up, because it's often a catchall to refute findings that a
governmental institution doesn't agree with."

   In fact, there are striking parallels between the fate of Brown's study and
that of a report commissioned by the National Institute of Justice--the research
arm of the Justice Department--which also concluded that DARE doesn't keep
kids off drugs. In 1991, the NIJ commissioned the respected Research Triangle
Institute in North Carolina to analyze the studies on DARE. When RTI presented
its preliminary results at a 1993 conference, DARE America tried to torpedo
the study. According to the minutes of an internal meeting obtained by The New
Republic, DARE America executive director Glenn Levant reported that his
organization spent $41,000 to try to prevent widespread distribution of the RTI 
report and started legal action aimed at squelching the study.

   And in an eerie foreshadowing of tactics the state used on Brown, the NIJ
rejected the RTI study because of, again, alleged "flawed methodology." Just
like Brown's study, however, the RTI study was accepted for publication in a
respected peer-review journal, the American Journal of Public Health. According 
to The New Republic, DARE America even tried to interfere with publication
by intimidating the journal's editors.

   Oddly, DARE America later began using the RTI report for its own
propaganda. Its press kit now includes a carefully worded flyer that highlights 
RTI's conclusions about DARE's popularity while sidestepping its more
important findings that DARE doesn't prevent drug use and that programs
stressing interactive curricula work much better. "Support for DARE is strong,
as is user satisfaction and the involvement of teachers," the two-page bulletin 
reads. "In assessing the DARE curriculum and how it is taught, most
drug-use-prevention coordinators gave it higher ratings than they did other
programs."

   But Susan T. Ennett, one of the four authors of the RTI study, calls DARE's
two-page bulletin misleading. "I think it would be stretching it to say that our
report was supportive of DARE," Ennett says. "Popularity is a very different
thing from whether it's effective. When you look at DARE immediately after the
program has concluded in fifth and sixth grade, the effects are much less than
for other prevention programs."

   The best known of these more effective programs is Life Skills Training,
developed by Cornell University Professor Gil Botvin and used throughout New
York State. Another is Project Star and Project I-Star, launched in Kansas and
Illinois, respectively. But these programs are smaller than DARE, says Nan
Tobler, a professor at the State University of New York at Albany, who received 
a grant from the National Institutes of Health to study 120 adolescent
drug-prevention programs.

   Tobler, one of Ennett's coauthors on the American Journal of Public Health
paper, found that successful antidrug programs, such as Life Skills and Project 
Star, focus on peer-led instead of teacher-led discussions and stress
role-playing about real-world situations. Explains Tobler: "It's not just a
teacher doing a nice job with the discussion or the police officer who gives
them a rehearsed thing to say."

   By contrast, DARE teaches kids "eight ways to say no": an emphatic no
thanks, giving a reason or excuse, repeatedly saying no, walking away, changing 
the subject, avoiding perilous situations, giving dealers the cold shoulder, and
finding strength in numbers. (Lochridge says DARE has revised its curriculum
in recent years to become more interactive, though he would not elaborate.)

   DARE--which stands for Drug Abuse Resistance Education--was founded in 1983
by former L.A. police chief Daryl Gates, who grew appalled that so many
teenagers kept getting busted for buying, selling, and using drugs in the city's
schools. "It was very frustrating to me, and it wasn't getting any better,"
recalls Gates, who now runs a consulting firm called CHIEF, designs interactive 
computer games (including one called SWAT), and travels the country speaking at 
DARE functions.

   In starting DARE, Gates joined forces with then-L.A. Unified School
District superintendent Harry Handler, who agreed to explore the idea of a joint
police-schools program. DARE was developed by school district personnel under 
the direction of Ruth Rich, who headed the district's Drug, Alcohol,
Tobacco/Comprehensive Health Education program. She based DARE on a model
called SMART, developed at USC by a team led by social psychologist William
Hansen.

   Now a professor of public health sciences at the Bowman Gray School of
Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Hansen says DARE borrowed heavily
from SMART but eliminated features that made his program successful. "They
didn't use peer opinion leaders and became authoritarian rather than Socratic in
their methodology," Hansen says. "So in the end, they've got the form of a
program that was successful without its essential elements. It doesn't change
the characteristics in kids that account for drug use."

   From its onset, DARE put uniformed police officers into classrooms to teach
a 17-week drug education and prevention curriculum to fifth- and sixth-graders, 
the ages at which, research shows, students become at risk for drugs. Now the
program has expanded into junior and senior high schools, adding antigang,
antiviolence, and parenting classes at those levels. DARE officers also visit 
third- and fourth-grade classes. All DARE officers undergo 80 hours of
training in child development, classroom management, teaching techniques, and
communication skills. Those who teach in high schools go through 40 hours more. 

   "Principals told me attendance went up on the day the DARE officer was
there," Gates says.

   Despite the contention in Brown's study that students do not trust those
teaching antidrug programs, Gates says, "Teachers could probably do a better job
of teaching DARE , but they don't have the credibility with the kids that
police officers have."

   In any case, DARE has become the largest drug prevention program in the
world. More than 25 million U.S. children in 8,000 communities will be taught
DARE tactics by 25,000 officers this year, and 7 million more will participate
worldwide. DARE is the only program sanctioned for funding under the federal
Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act. Altogether, DARE will receive $750
million this year, about $650 million of it from federal, state, and local
governments. The rest will come from private contributions.

   From its base in L.A., DARE America oversees the program worldwide and
conducts an international fundraising effort. DARE America has been
phenomenally successful at marketing itself to corporate sponsors, including
Warner Brothers, Western Union, and candy company Mars Inc. It is endorsed by
such celebrities as action star Steven Seagal and prizefighter Sugar Ray
Leonard. In his State of the Union message on January 23, 1996, even President
Clinton weighed in: "People like these DARE officers are making a real
impression on grade-school children that will give them the strength to say no
when the time comes."

   DARE America also has been very successful in marketing its program to the 
news media through a carefully orchestrated public relations campaign that
highlights its popularity while downplaying criticism. While the DARE
spokesman responded to a few basic questions during one brief interview, he
would not return repeated telephone calls requesting comment on cases involving 
DARE nationwide and information on DARE America's organizational structure. 

   The local DARE program is handled by a special section of the Los Angeles
Police Department, which sends officers to teach the curriculum to 850,000 LAUSD
students a year.
 
   In addition to the criticism that DARE doesn't work, it has been faulted by
those who believe police should be out fighting crime, leaving drug education to
teachers, counselors, and social workers. The debate played out in L.A. last
year with Police Chief Willie Williams reassigning all of the junior and senior 
high school DARE officers (31 of 104) to street duty.
  
   Gates slams his replacement for cutting back DARE, saying that the program 
can't reach its full potential unless it is reinforced at upper grade levels.
From the beginning, Gates says, the program had twin goals--to keep kids off
drugs and to help them develop positive relationships with police. Gates
maintains that DARE works because kids know officers won't put them in jail.
Often, he says, kids break down and cry while recounting narcotics use at home. 
"There have been times when DARE officers have been so angry they want to go
out and bust a parent . But they don't call narcotics, they call school
authorities and counselors. They absolutely stay out of it."
                                                                                
   Gates's statement would come as a surprise to Leo Mercado, a potter and
father of four who lives outside Kearny, Arizona, and yanked his sixth-grade
daughter Audrey out of DARE in 1994 because he disagreed with its teachings.
Mercado belongs to the Native American Church and says he grows and uses peyote 
for religious rites, which is legal in Arizona.

   The subsequent year the school's DARE officer, with the principal's
permission, pulled Audrey out of class one day and questioned her for 10
minutes. The next afternoon, Audrey was again handed over to local law
enforcement officials, who took her to a sheriff's substation and interrogated
her for two hours about her father's drug use. Mercado says, "They told her,
'Your dad's not going to get into trouble, we just want to know some things.'"

   Later that afternoon, a county SWAT team burst into his home as he was making
pottery in his workshop. The police forced him to the floor at gunpoint,
handcuffed him, and tore apart his house. Officials said later that a
confidential informant had told them Mercado was growing and selling large
amounts of marijuana under armed guard at his remote ranch. Mercado and his
wife, Raven, say the informant was Audrey.

   The police confiscated his hallucinogenic cacti, some marijuana cigarette
butts, two marijuana buds, one marijuana seedling, two MDMA (Ecstasy) tablets,
and the ceremonial peyote pipes that the Mercados made and sold as a business.
The Mercados were jailed and charged with felony possession of peyote, child
endangerment, and other drug charges. Later, all the charges were dropped but
one: Mercado pleaded guilty to possession of a pipe that could be construed as
drug paraphernalia.

   Mercado has since filed a civil suit against the DARE officer, the school, 
Pinal County, and the town of Kearny and is being represented by the Rutherford 
Foundation, a civil-liberties organization that specializes in religious freedom
cases. Mercado admits he is no saint but says DARE had no right to terrorize
his family. "They used a child to try to convict a parent," he says. "That's
immoral."
   
   The sheriff's department refused to discuss the investigation, citing the
need to protect a confidential informant.
  
   Other parents have alleged that DARE supporters have used hardball tactics 
to smear them. In 1991, Gary Peterson of Fort Collins, Colorado, decided to
research the local DARE program. What he found prompted him to speak out
against DARE on the Larry King Live television show and to found a group
called Parents Against DARE, which now has 200 members and works with
anti-DARE groups in 40 states.

   "It bugged me that the bad guy is the parents and grandparents," says
Peterson, who describes himself as a moderate Libertarian. "They depict Dad as a
drunk with a joint in his hand and glorify the image of DARE officers. It's
Santa Claus in a uniform. What kid does not like someone who hands out free
gifts such as bumper stickers and DARE T-shirts and rides in the police car?" 

   Like researcher Brown, Peterson says he has received threatening calls at
home from people claiming to be police officers. He says his son was harangued
so much in class that Peterson taught him at home for a year and a half. Rumors 
spread that Peterson was an addict who promoted drug use among kids. "It was a
real attempt at character assassination," he alleges.

   Across the country in Rogersville, Alabama, Judy McLemore, a Christian
grandmother, also ran afoul of DARE for asking to see the program's curriculum
in 1991. McLemore says that when she tried to record a middle school DARE
lesson, an officer snatched a DARE manual out of her hand and another took the
tape from her recorder. McLemore says local DARE supporters tarred her as a
thief who wanted to use DARE's curriculum to go into business for herself.

   "DARE forces kids who might not ever have considered it before to sit down 
and think about whether they want to use drugs," she says. "And it's a setup for
kids to turn in their neighbors or family members."

   In attempts to rebuff such critics, DARE America in 1993 commissioned a
Gallup survey of 2,000 graduates. More than 90 percent responded that DARE had
helped them avoid drugs and alcohol. But Ennett of RTI dismisses the opinion
poll, saying that, unlike Brown's research, it "simply is not a scientific study
of the effectiveness...of DARE."

   In the past year, several big school districts have opted out of DARE,
though DARE America notes that 270 new cities joined during the period,
including New York and Washington, D.C.

   One of the cities to leave was Seattle, where a recent survey showed that 88 
percent of high school students have tried drugs. In canceling the program, the 
city's police department cited budget cuts as well as evidence that the program 
doesn't work. " DARE is less effective in curbing adolescent drug use than
smaller, more interactive programs taught by teachers," says Christie-Lynne
Bonner, a department spokeswoman.

   The Oakland School District stopped using DARE in 1996, in part because
city council members heard about the critical studies and wanted to draft their 
own more realistic drug prevention curriculum for local schools. "I don't think 
that DARE is one of the best curricula on the market; it's probably best that 
drug education be taught by teachers in the classroom as part of the overall
curriculum," says Paul Brekke-Miesner, program manager for health and safety in 
the Oakland public schools.

   In Los Angeles County, Burbank schools have discontinued DARE after
elementary school. "We think it's too juvenile for middle school," says Sgt.
Janice Lowers, who heads the juvenile division of the Burbank Police Department.
"High-schoolers are more sophisticated, and they've already made the decision to
use or not to use, so you need a different method. We try to focus on
responsibility instead of Just Say No."

   Agrees Hansen: "DARE sells like hotcakes when it's in fifth grade. But if
you go into seventh grade with the same program, it takes a nose-dive. The
message has to change."
                                                                                
   At Weemes Elementary School near USC, Officer Derwin Henderson, 32, has
become a father figure to many of the fifth-graders from broken homes. Henderson
tells the kids he became a DARE officer because he lost an uncle to drugs and 
wanted to keep his 9-year-old nephew on the straight and narrow. The
joke-cracking cop, who is clearly adored by students, then leads the class in
reviewing the eight ways to say no to drugs.

   Then comes some role-playing (one kid plays pusher and another plays intended
victim):
 
   "Want some beer?"
 
  "I don't like the taste."
  
   Henderson interrupts. "C'mon, homes, you never tasted it before, remember?"
 
   "I'm going take my homies, and we're gonna whup you," says the 12-year-old
pusher, warming up to his task.
  
   The other boy continues to adamantly shake his head no and offer excuses.

   After 20 seconds, Henderson praises them both and leads the class in a round 
of clapping. It's clear that the kids enjoy this, but one boy at the back of the
class murmurs doubts about whether such tactics would work on the street.
   
   Indeed, students interviewed at North Hollywood High School echoed the boy's 
sentiment and some of the comments from youths quoted in Brown's study. Cesar
Gonzalez, a 17-year-old senior, remembers his DARE officer fondly and can even
recite some of the eight ways to say no. But Gonzalez says his DARE lessons
had little bearing on his decision to use drugs. "It didn't really apply to my
everyday life," Gonzalez explains, as his two pals nod in agreement. "My friends
didn't peer-pressure me to do anything. I knew it was bad, but I was just
curious to see how it felt."