Pubdate: Sun, 10 Jul 2005
Source: Des Moines Register (IA)
Section: Main News, Pg 17A
Copyright: 2005 The Des Moines Register.
Contact:  http://desmoinesregister.com/index.html
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/123
Author: Clark Kauffman
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/dare.htm (D.A.R.E.)

RESEARCHER DEFENDS PROGRAM, WANTS TO SEE STUDIES ON OTHERS

Jerry Stubben is evaluating Rock In Prevention while suggesting 
improvements to it as an unpaid adviser.

Iowa State University researcher Jerry Stubben doesn't mince words when it 
comes to all of the drug-prevention programs that are being funded by the 
Iowa Department of Public Health.

"They have no evidence the money they're giving to many of these other 
agencies is really effective," Stubben says. "I mean, they spend millions 
of dollars on that crap."

Two years ago, Stubben was awarded a $298,000 federal grant to study Rock 
In Prevention. He said his preliminary findings show that children exposed 
to the program are less likely to use drugs than those who have never seen 
Rock In Prevention. That, he said, makes the program better than others 
addressing substance abuse on which the department is "wasting" tax dollars.

"There are people in Iowa who want (Rock In Prevention) to fail," he said. 
"I mean, seriously, put this in your article: I would really like to see a 
scientific evaluation of Character Counts, the DARE program and the (Just 
Eliminate Lies) program that all these politicians are talking about. I 
want to see it. I want to see a five-year study of these programs."

State records show more than half of the federal grant money that ISU has 
received for Stubben's study of Rock In Prevention is to be spent by Rock 
In Prevention itself, which is working as a "subcontractor" on the 
federally funded project.

So far, the charity has spent about $125,000 of the money, with the single 
largest expense being the purchase of $27,360 worth of compact discs from 
the charity's executive director, Pat McManus. The grant application budget 
also allows for the purchase of newsletters, travel expenses, computer 
equipment and salaries.

Stubben said Rock In Prevention's role as a paid subcontractor and his own 
role as an unpaid adviser and honorary board member for Rock In Prevention 
don't diminish the independent nature of his work, which will be subject to 
peer review.

He said the goal of the project is not merely to study the program's 
effectiveness, but to make improvements in the way it's run. In fact, 
Stubben said, he is advising McManus on the changes to make in Rock In 
Prevention -changes that Stubben is now in the process of evaluating.

"To be blunt, I can make Pat do whatever I want him to do because we are 
evaluating it," Stubben said.

Without that exchange of information and funding, he says, the university 
can't control what's being evaluated. And that, he says, would skew the 
findings of the study.

In 2001, Dr. Steve Gleason, the head of the Iowa Department of Public 
Health, gave Rock In Prevention a letter stating that the organization had 
met the department's "requirements for science-based outcomes and effective 
evaluations."

Today, public health officials say that since Stubben's study has not yet 
been completed, Rock in Prevention's effectiveness is unknown.

Gleason, who no longer works in state government, now serves on Rock In 
Prevention's board of directors.