Antidrug Program's End Stirs Up Salt Lake City
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY

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Tom Smart for The New York Times
Mayor Ross C. Anderson of Salt Lake City angered many residents by
eliminating the school antidrug program DARE.

SALT LAKE CITY, Sept. 14 — For all the decisions Ross C. Anderson has made in
his first year as mayor of Salt Lake City, none has caused a bigger furor
than this one: Over the summer, he terminated the city's involvement with the
antidrug program in public schools known as DARE, saying that it was
ineffective and a poor substitute for programs that he contends do more to
discourage drug use by young people.

Reaction was swift. While many residents applauded the decision, Mr. Anderson
was criticized by parents, teachers, Republicans, even fellow Democrats,
including the chairman of the state party, Meg Holbrook, and the Democratic
candidate for governor, Bill Orton.

"I know this is a net political loss for me," Mr. Anderson said in an
interview this week about his decision to eliminate DARE — Drug Abuse
Resistance Education — after it had been in Salt Lake City for 10 years. "But
DARE is a complete fraud on the American people, and has actually done a lot
of harm by preventing the implementation of more effective programs."

Founded 17 years ago in Los Angeles as a tool to discourage children from
using illegal drugs, tobacco products and alcohol, DARE classes are now part
of the curriculums in 10,000 school districts in the United States and at
schools in 54 other countries, the organization said. Glenn Levant, DARE's
president and founding director, says a growing number of districts are using
the program, despite a handful that drop it each year.

But in making Salt Lake one of the largest cities to cut off financial
support for the program, Mr. Anderson has joined a small but vocal group of
elected officials who argue that many of the current strategies in the
nation's war on drugs have done little to reduce the supply or demand for
illegal drugs.

These officials include several governors — Gary E. Johnson of New Mexico, a
Republican; Benjamin J. Cayetano of Hawaii, a Democrat; and Jesse Ventura of
Minnesota, of the Reform Party — as well as mayors, state lawmakers and
federal judges who have argued for and helped change a variety of laws to
recognize drug use as a health issue, rather than a criminal justice issue.

As a result, more states are expanding methadone maintenance programs and
making it easier for people with drug addictions and AIDS to obtain sterile
needles. In addition, voters in seven states and the District of Columbia
have approved the use of marijuana for medical purposes, even though the
federal government had threatened to prosecute doctors who prescribe it.

Mayor Anderson and Governor Johnson, among others, have called for
decriminalizing the use of marijuana. As a measure of the support for that
sentiment, voters in Alaska and California's Mendocino County will consider
November ballot initiatives that would do just that. If the initiatives are
passed, the two governments will become the first in which the use of
marijuana cannot be prosecuted, although it remains unclear if federal drug
laws would take precedence.

In any case, the two initiatives are the first of their kind since 1986, when
Oregon voters defeated a similar measure by a narrow vote.

"Since Jan. 1, we have had more victories for drug-prevention reform than the
past 20 years," said Ethan Nadelmann, director of the Lindesmith Center Drug
Policy Foundation, a New York organization dedicated to creating new drug
policies.

Utah is an unlikely place for a change in drug policy. It is so conservative
that Gov. Michael O. Leavitt, a Republican, was booed at his state party
convention three months ago for supporting a measure that would have denied
people the right to carry their guns into churches and schools. In addition,
state lawmakers this year defeated a bill that would have allowed public
schools to teach sex education.

For his decision to end the drug program, in which police officers visit
classrooms an hour a week for 17 weeks at a cost to the city of $289,000 a
year, Mr. Anderson said he had been branded by his critics as "soft on
crime." This, he said, was despite the fact that he had encouraged the
superintendent of Salt Lake public schools, Darlene Robles, to select an
alternative program for the city's 25,000 students.

Mr. Anderson said he based his decision on studies that showed that children
who had been exposed to DARE were no less likely to use drugs later in life
than children who had not. Investigating the effectiveness of the program and
other school antidrug initiatives, Mr. Anderson said he had found that "to my
amazing dismay, all the peer-reviewed research shows that DARE is a complete
waste of money and, even worse, fritters away the opportunity to implement a
good drug-prevention program in schools."

In defending the program, Mr. Levant said Mr. Anderson had ignored the
short-term benefits of the program, primarily that it discouraged drug use by
elementary school children. He also argued that in those school districts
where the program was also taught in middle and high schools, the antidrug
message was reinforced.

"Just to say memories of elementary school children fade and that's why the
program has no long-term benefits is unfair," Mr. Levant said.

Kathy Stewart, a police detective in Lehi, Utah, and president of the Utah
DARE Officers Association, conceded that long-term benefits might be
difficult to prove. But she said the interaction between police officers and
children in a school setting fulfilled an important component of community
policing, allowing officers to build trust with many more children than they
would in chance meetings on the street.

Ms. Robles, the superintendent, said she had taken a neutral position on Mr.
Anderson's order but, in compliance with his decision, had put together a
committee of parents and community leaders that was reviewing options for
antidrug programs.

Mr. Anderson predicted that once city residents embraced an alternative
program that might be more effective, criticism would fade.

"I'm not interested in killing a program that works," he said. "But just look
at the research. My responsibility is to make sure our kids have the best
drug-prevention program there is. I think that once people in Salt Lake City
understand what it is I'm doing, most of them will support me."

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