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• DARE Program: Sacred Cow or Fatted Calf? 

But there's a catch: numerous studies across the country, including one in Suffolk two years ago, cast doubt on DARE's effectiveness. Its graduates are no less likely to use drugs than other children, the studies have concluded.

Nevertheless, the program remains enormously popular. So popular, in fact, that any suggestion that it be replaced with a more effective or less expensive program tends to raise howls of protest from parents, school officials and the police.

As a result, Suffolk lawmakers girding to do battle with a projected $250 million budget shortfall in 2005 are reluctant to take any overt jab at DARE, even though it costs the police department nearly $3 million a year. . . .

"The kids like it because they get recognition and having a police officer in the classroom is a novel thing," he said. "And parents whose kids don't have drug problems to begin with think that DARE is responsible. But the real serious problem is that behind all the fun and recognition and hoopla is a valid concept that hasn't been allowed to work because it isn't pounded into these children throughout the educational process. Like anything else, it wears off."

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