PEAR Security

Hello, I am relatively new to the php programming world and I have a question about PEAR. Does PEAR make my db queries more secure, or is it just a class to make queries more "organized and easier". As in what would be the difference (security level wise) between just doing this: (Supposing I striped slashes, escaped strings etc. already.) (Already connected through regular mysql commands) ------------------------------------------ $sql = "SELECT * FROM USERS" $query = mysql_query($sql); ------------------------------------------ As opposed to: (Already connected through PEAR procedure) ------------------------------------------ $sql = "SELECT * FROM USERS" $query = $db->query($sql); ---------------------------------------- Thanks in advance for your time.