Has D.A.R.E Been Effective?

macnigel asks: "I'm an editor of my school's newspaper and plan to write a commentary on the effectiveness of the D.A.R.E program. I would like to hear what Slashdot's audience has to say about the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program that's in place in most schools around the country. Comments and experiences are welcome. I raise this question in light of a fairly recent study by Harvard University. The study goes on to claim the sucess of a new approach to the problem of binge drinking. Should D.A.R.E try new approaches to the problem? Can D.A.R.E ever hope to impact drug abuse among youth?"

Comments

Offtopic?

[Anonymous Coward]

This seems a little outside of Slashdot's jurisdiction. Anyone agree?

You tell me

[Uruk]

The war on drugs is as intense as ever.
The political smoke is so thick (no pun intended) that nobody can tell if drug use is going up or down

The war on drugs is a total pathetic failure that deserves to be eliminated with all haste. Some other places in the world realize that "getting people with the program" probably shouldn't involve kicking down their door and throwing them in a federal prison so lonely inmates pay spiders for sex.

The libertarian party is on the rise, and to a certain extent the socialists and the greens as well. And what have we heard from their mouths? "I will grant an unconditional pardon to all non-violent convicts upon entering the oval office".

Check out Smokedot for more info on different perspectives on the War on Drugs.

You're asking did DARE succeed? I'ts a small component of a massive system that has totally fallen on its ass. So I would say no, all DARE did was give a few cops extra drinking money.

Re:You tell me

[apropos]

drsoran wrote a satirical comment: "I agree. I think we need to also legalize murder and rape. [...] God Bless America." I believe (s)he is trying to point out that if we are going to legalize drug use, we might as well legalize murder and rape. I am responding both to drsoran and those with the general attitude that drug use or abuse should be illegal.

My response:

It is sad indeed when the issue is so confused that the idea of harming another person gets mixed up with the right to privacy. These are distinct and separate issues.

I hold these two truths to be self-evident: It is never right to harm someone against their wishes, and it is never right to tell someone what they can and can't do if it has no effect on anyone else.

And it harm none, so let it be.

You can argue all you want that "drug use has social consequences" and you would be right that it does. But mostly because you make it that way. No matter what you say, it is possible for someone to use mind or mood altering chemicals without bothering anybody else. And you have zero moral grounds to stand on trying to stop them.

This all boils down to the neighborly christian attitude that that the "pious" (my very favorite epithet) have every right to tell the "non-pious" how to live their lives. This gentle and loving commentary on my life should, of course, have the full force and weight of law behind it. Because god's laws are higher than man's.

I love the fact that christians don't feel god is judging and damning nearly enough, so they gleefully step in to help him out. "Hey, god! You're slacking off here, my neighbors are having oral sex. If you're not gonna stop it, well I'm calling the cops. No? Well, screw you, god!"

If the elderly had the right to end their lives in dignity, would end-of-life issues be so difficult? Would you rather allow your parents a going away party and a "special drink" or would you rather keep them weak and bed-ridden for ten years against their wishes? Because no matter how much pain you are causing the people you love most, you are doing what you consider "the Right Thing".

(I chose that example because it compares both issues of harming others and a right to privacy. It shows that sometimes you have to do something that doesn't sound right at all to really do the right thing.)

And if you think god's laws are higher than man's, who really wrote those laws? And is hearsay enough evidence to destroy our society? Personally, I don't think so.

No

[linuxonceleron]

DARE in my case simply equated all drug use as being the same as abuse. It also told us that drugs were equally bad, now I mean, most kids know that weed isn't as bad as say crack. We were told that weed would have us addicted the first time we ever tried it and that we would turn into losers and burnouts. I personally don't see a problem with softcore drug use in moderation, but DARE failed to make a distinguisment between the two. I'm sure many kids find that weed isn't really a bad drug, but they feel like DARE lied about everything, and then move into harder drugs. Though I will admit that even weed will get you in with the "wrong crowd" many times, and there's plenty of people who smoke too much as well.

DARE will never really be successful unless they are honest. If officer joe came in and told us that weed wouldn't kill you but it isn't good to do when you need to pay attention and to stay away from hardcore dealers maybe kids would get the message. I know plenty of people my age who responsibly use recreational drugs, and plenty who do too much when they need to be studying, etc. All in all, there needs to be more honesty and education. Most of what I've learned about drugs was online as there was no appropriate and unbiased education program in my school.

Also check out the D.A.R.E. node on everything2, its quite an interesting view on the issue.

Nope

[Jason W]

Its interesting that you bring this up now. Just yesterday in government class we had the opportunity to listen to one of the candidates for the local House seat speak. Its public record that he got a DUI when he was 19 (he's only 21 now). Even though the teacher asked him not to talk about it, he did. He said "DARE didn't work". The entire class gave a little chuckle because we all know its true. Even that very day, there was an assembly at the middle school for Red Ribbon Week, which alot of people in the high school had fun joking about what effect it had had on them.

Just from my personal experience with DARE and the health classes in my school, the basic effect is: 10% recognize the dangerous effects. 50% don't aren't swayed either way. 40% realize that the teachers, parents, and police don't want them to be drinking and smoking, so they have added incentive to do it.

And of the 10% that recognized the dangerous effects, I'd say at least half do it anyways. No-one has given them a good enough reason why not to. Most kids in middle school, especially, have no way to comprehend what their actions will cause in the future. And most kids in high school have friends a few years older than them who partied hard in high school, went to college and partied hard, and still ended up with normal jobs, normal families, and the whole bit. No-one has given a good enough reason not to do it (if one exists).

On a funny note, in health class we watched a video about binge drinking Americans crossing the border into Mexico. The video was kids partying with half naked members of the opposite sex while drinking their brains out and having the time of their life, intersperced with parents and police preaching the dangers of alcohol use. ...right, whatever you say...

No credibility

[Shotgun]

What we have here is a case where good people with good intentions have lost there credibility through hyperbole.

How did the model program reduce binge drinking? Through reality. It showed students that there was no need to drink yourself silly in an attempt to keep up.

How could DARE actually work? Through reality. Instead of saying 'pot kills', they should say that pot will reduce your performance. (I think they should still be allowed to say that CRACK and sniffing glue kills?)

The point is that people who are still trying to figure out how the world works are incredibly sensitive to hypocrisy, and they invariably reject it out of hand once it is found. A rejected hypocrit is not an authority, no matter whose uniform they are wearing. Iff DARE is to be effective, they must present the most solid research in the frankest manner possible.

Continuation of a trend

[Private Essayist]

I found this story on the D.A.R.E. web site, in their news section where they list success stories. In the section about kids and D.A.R.E, I found this excerpt:

"A 10-year-old Newport Beach, California girl named Amber escaped a would-be abductor near her home last weekend. Then, with TV cameras rolling, she credited the DARE officer at her school for teaching her what to do. You can bet hundreds of DARE police officers throughout the nation were whooping when they saw that...

"How well does it work? That's a crapshoot; we can never say for sure," said Lynne Bloomberg, who coordinates the DARE program for the Newport Mesa Unified School District. "But I'm wholeheartedly convinced it's worth doing." Just ask Amber. She'd just gotten off her bicycle to pick flower in her Eastbluff neighborhood when someone pulled up in a truck, opened the door and tried to grab her. Amber said she knew from her DARE officer not to get close enough that he could reach her and that she should scream and run like crazy to get away. "

Other than the humorous image of a bunch of cops "whooping" when they heard about Amber's actions (whooping ass? the imagination soars...), I found this story odd.

For one thing, note the logic error of the D.A.R.E. spokesperson when talking about whether or not D.A.R.E. works:

"...we can never say for sure. But I'm wholeheartedly convinced it's worth doing."

There you go! We can't say for sure, but I just did. What more proof do you need?

Secondly, what has this got to do with D.A.R.E? Dare to avoid sex offenders? Furthermore, why did Amber credit D.A.R.E for teaching her not to get into trucks with strange men? Didn't her parents provide this salient fact?

I find this to be part of the larger trend of people shirking personal responsibility. Parents should teach morality to their children, not outsiders in the school. Otherwise, whose morality gets taught? The morality that says weed is not as bad as crack and heroin? Or the morality that says all drugs are universally and equally bad, including that aspirin, you naughty boy! D.A.R.E has to choose one parent's morality and not the other. Predictably, of course, they chose the easy to remember, Claritin will lead to a life of depravity, level of morality.
________________

My 3.14 bits

[fjordboy]

I think the proof of DARE's ineffectiveness lies in Slashdot's Moderaters. I DARE them to stop taking crack. :)

also..my post works whether it is moderated down or up, so there. :-P

Young 'uns

[Skim123]

When the DARE officer came to talk to us, I was in fifth grade (10 years old). While I agree with your points, that not all drugs are evil voodoo drugs that must be avoided religiously, I do not know if kids that young can make a discernable difference between the two. Should we be giving kids a long list of what "OK" drugs are what "bad" drugs are? Kids, it's OK to try pot, but don't try crack. I dunno... I kind of liken it to telling young kids, "Hey, it's ok to have pre-marital oral sex, but not actual penetration." Once someone has gone as far as oral sex, vaginal sex ain't too far away.

Likewise, I would assume the percentage of crack or heroin users that have used pot as well is higher than the percentage of non-crack and non-heroin users. Now, I'm not saying pot unquestionably leads to harder drugs, but I don't think you want to give the youth the impression that some drugs (which might be used as stepping-stones to harder drugs) are ok.

Re:Young 'uns

[zCyl]

> Should we be giving kids a long list of what "OK" drugs are what "bad" drugs are?

We ALREADY do this, it's just rather arbitrary. Don't do pot, it numbs you! Awww, have a headache? Here, take this Tylenol, have an Advil. Oh, you can't behave in class? Maybe we need to put you on Ridilin, yeah, it's in your best interest. No, don't drink, alcohol is evil! It changes your behavior.

Think about it. What's a gateway to what? Why are some drugs "bad" and some drugs "good"? All that really exists is a set of truthful cause:effects. Drug A causes effect B on your body. In most environments, children can get access to anything they want access to, so they're going to need to know factually what drugs cause what effects if they're ever going to learn how to make responsible decisions as adults.

not only doesn't it work it is mindless bs...

[MousePotato]

Look up the following (if you need more just reply and I will give you a ton): Frontline:busted..how effective is D.A.R.E
War on Drugs Clock
Interesting Fact Sheet from canadian sources That should get you started on how and why D.A.R.E. does not work. The US prohibition against drugs in an incredible failure. In the first 12 years of the War on Drugs (begining with Reagan's presidency) the US Gov. spent a record 3 Trillion dollars. If you worked out the numbers that is about $12,000 for every man, woman and child in the US. I don't know about you but my feeling is that this is an incredible waste of money. I could think of agencies like NASA who I would rather see me $1,000 a year spent on rather than the bullshit we call a war on drugs. I can't find an exact figure for the model but last year the 6th largest growth industry in the US was Prisons according to a Frontline report I saw not too long ago. The War on Drugs as it is being waged is the most blatant racist violation of US citizens rights. The statistic of 3 out of 4 black males (between ages 17-34)in inner cities being incarcerated at one point or another for a drug offense should point that out. The distribution of drug use is not vastly different between any particular ethnic, racial or financial demographic yet we relentlessly persecute blacks for it. This is an utter disgrace. Caucasians do drugs too. I don't see 3 out of 4 of us in jail for it.If this were really a WAR then we would handle it completely different but we won't. It is always election fodder and makes the righteous candidates look foolish for saying truthfully that the war is dumb. Jocelyn Elders was ridiculed out of her position as Surgeon General for saying that the drug problem is a health problem not a criminal problem. The CIA was busted selling and marketing cocaine in 'Contragate' to help fund subversive actions during the Iran/Iraq war. The list goes on there I could continue to add to ad infinitum.People for the most part are opposed to legalization/decriminalization for all the wrong reasons based upon the disinformation you are presented with in the educational system. Could we please stop brainwashing the next generation and teach them the facts? How many of us were forced to watch Reefer Madness? How much of the 'facts' presented therein is totally bullshit? Will crime go UP if decriminaliztion occurs? No because a) you will kill the black market that feeds off of it b) drugs will be much cheaper c)the quality will be better d)street gangs who finance themselves on drug sales will be out of business e)we would stop letting violent offenders out of jail to house mandatory sentencing guidlined drug offenders and the rediculous 3 time offender laws that require people to be jailed the rest of thier lives for the sale or use f)the relentless seizure of properites would end. Drug use for the most part is a victimless crime.We have to stop this madness and soon. Cops needlessly are being killed. FBI agents bodies are turning up in graves in Mexico. Our Presidential candidates have used drugs: Gore and Bush links. I am totally for decriminalization and when I say that I mean clean across the board, not just pot or coke I mean EVERYTHING. What a person does in thier own home on thier own time is thier business. You do what you want. I care not. If you do drugs and get behind the wheel of a car we take away you liscense forever(something I totally advocate for DUI offenders to) end of story. The basic tenet of freedom is the right to be left alone and not be unduly harrassed. Why isn't it that way now?Please, Uncle Sam, stop blowing my hard earned tax dollars on the bullshit and stop trying to brainwash our children.

The real problem drug is

[WillAffleck]

Alcohol. Tobacco is the second gateway drug.

Think about it. Look around yourself, pay attention to who became druggies and who didn't. Chances are they were drinking or smoking at an early age.

Instead, we waste time targetting marijuana and demonizing it, spending more than 40 percent of our budgets (federal, state, county, municipal averaged) on arresting mostly harmless occassional marijuana and ecstasy users who never really cause problems, and thinking this will actually have an effect.

It won't.

Look, some members of my family made fortunes during prohibition. Drugs are drugs, heroin is stupid, cocaine/crack is also stupid, and meth is just plain dumb, but you can't stop people by lame programs that don't deal with the real gateway drugs, in a world where most underage teenagers have had a drink in the past month.

So, get real, take half the money we spend on crac king down on the drug supply and spend it on realistic prevention programs, and triage the enforcement process so we don't lock up soft drug users with hard time criminals and perpetuate the problem.

Re:DARE is not propaganda

[logicnazi]

I have done a considerable amount of research on the brain damage topic so I will try to respond in an intelligent way.

Yes, some drugs do cause some brain imparment including alchool, pot, ecstasy ketamine and others. The question at hand is how much imparment. Various studies have also shown brain imparment from head butting soccer balls but I don't think we need a DARE program for soccer abuse.

Many studies, including ones founded by the WHO(World Health organization not Pete Townshed's band), have found less long term mental damage from smoking pot than imbibing alchool. In fact the long term damage from being an alcholic is actually fairly severe. Yet it is possible to occasionally have a drink and suffer no noticeable deliterious effects in ones life be a productive member of society and in fact be more happy overall. It would therefore seem alchol use is often a good thing. Also given the research into the harmful effects infrequent pot use seems like a good thing too.

Of course using any drug carries with it the possibilty of physical or psychological addiction. Alchool is in fact physically addictive while marijuanna is not. This doesn't mean one can't overuse the drug but does lend further credence that it should not be included in the DARE propaganda.

Other drugs can be quite damaging to the brain. For instance ecstasy is very hard on the serotonin system and use has been shown to correlate with imparment. On the other hand long term use of opiates (opium heroin etc...) has very little (if any) brain imparment although they are quite addictive. Drugs like LSD have not been conclusively shown to carry any cognitive imparment with them (several studies suggest that they have one imparment over another but at the same time these studies all disagree and oten work in a psuedo-uncontrolled enviornment which allows other drugs to affect the results) and while depresion and anxiety are also claimed as side effects I am unaware of any controlled study to this effect.

But now this is a quite differnt picture of drugs than painted in DARE. Some drugs can be quite hard on the brain (ecstasy and to a lesser extent alchol depending on the amount) while other "bad drugs" are sometimes not to bad on the brain or at least less harmful than our legal drug alchol. This then is why DARE is propaganda.

WHY IS THIS BAD?
Well because if we lie to children when we are telling them drugs are bad they are likely to take everything we tell them on the subject to be false. Once children find out that pot is not the demon weed and it isn't that bad for you they may stop believing ecstasy is that harmful or heroin is that addictive. Without any authoratative unbiased knowledge know they have to guess as what drugs are worth it and which are not.

In regards to prison most marijuanna users don't go to prison. The figure is now something like 55% or high school seniors have tried pot. Most of them aren't going to prison...they are growing up to be bankers and lawyers and politicians.

That 55% figure is a good response to the success of DARE. Another little factoid for you is that the government plays fast and loose with its figures sometimes switching the age of those they polled to make it look like their program has been more succesfull (Barry McCaffery just did this).

Just a note on your final point doing something because everyone else is doing it is not only what intelligent people do it is what everyone does. We wear clothes, don't go to work dressed in giant ape suits, eat with silverware etc..etc.. all because others are doing it. This sort of thing is only viewed as bad when in fact everyone else isn't doing it and you are merely following a small subset.

DARE is fundamentally flawed

[h0mee]

DARE has many fundamental problems with it which are inextricably linked with the moronic attitude of the drug war.

The first is that "drugs" is ill-defined and is equated with the irrational schedule policies of the DEA/FDA. Everything you ingest is a drug. Every lipid, amino acid, carbohydrate, tryptamine, amphetamine, etc. etc. all have effects on your body and your brain- whether it be LSD or L-Tyrosine. To promote a healthy attitude in the populace, one needs to show the reality of cause and effect of everything you ingest. It is hypocritical of schools to be having anti-marijuana campaigns through DARE when such things are funded by PepsiCola or Mcdonalds- just as if not more deleterious to one's body as some "hard" drugs. Don't beleive me? Check out the increasing rates of hypoglycemia and diabetes among the youth generation, and compare that with the rates of, say, methamphetamine addiction (you'll find the former is much higher). The rational approach is a holistic approach- advocating the ability to regain bio and mental homeostasis even after extreme conditions (stress, drugs, lack of exercise)- which leaves the decision in the hands of well-informed youth, and not in horribly misinformed disempowered generation.

That said, there are positive effects to many illicit substances- enhancements in creativity, insight in self, stress relief, etc. Just like there are positive effects to eating a fatty and heavy meal, or taking medication to treat a disease. Ideally, one can avoid doing all of the above. Practically, its not going to happen- and teaching strategies for one to effectively using a state of homeostasis (sobriety) to get through life is critical, and is severly lacking in our bass-ackwards society.

The second problem is not only is a bad philosophy being taught, but misinformation is freewheelingly handed out, which not only destroys the credibility of the program, but also endangers the lives of many youth who may not have access to reliable information when drugs come their way. Yes, methamphetamine and heroin are not good- Ive had many a friends have their lives disrupted by it. On the same token, marijuana and and LSD dont kill- Ive taken them and am probably much more of a productive member of society than most, regardless. The harm prevention comes down to situations like: "When I am in a club scene, how much water should I drink, and what activity level should I have to prevent injury?" or "What dosages can cocaine have addictive effects?". Thanks to not having full factual disclosure, DARE has resulted not in the decline of drugs, but rather, the irresponsible use of drugs. In fact, I would go so far to say that the advent of the internet and sites like hyperreal, erowid and groups like rec.drugs have saved tens of thousands of lives in drug situations thanks to factual accounts.

The third problem, is by introducing police (and other legal strongarm elements in to the situation), DARE has created an antagonistic relationship with legal system and the youth right off. Youth immediately become part of a criminal class- a class which is suspect of being "bad" under any circumstances. At best, As everyone in the 10-25 age group knows, this mentality has blossomed into the "crucify the different" mentality with all the anti-geek, anti-punk, etc. crusades occuring after Columbine regardless of the productivity or general goodness of the kids involved (its a total lack of philosophy, thinking, and humanity on the part of the administrations). At worst, kids who may have bad lives and chemical dependency problems are physically abused, tortured, and shipped off to the gulag, where they descend further and further into complete alienation from the positive aspects of society. The police involvement in the DARE program in it's current use makes police into nothing more than at best a gestapo, and at worst into just another really violent gang of thugs, given license to brutality by society. What happened to "officer friendly"? If you are going to have legeal intervention, it should be for the positive, and not by blindly treating all kids who use drugs, or happen to associate with a particular group as cockroaches- needing to be wiped out from society.

All of what I say is coming from growing up in the American Public School system in the time of the drug war, and having been in all sorts of different social roles (as math/computer whiz kid, a disgruntled political student, an illicit substance user, teacher's pet, etc. etc.). My suggestion for DARE managers, and people who want to stop seeing substance abuse is to Stop the Madness- stop buying the bullshit about crime and drugs. Stop thinking of drugs as an evil force. Stop thinking of black and white. Realize that substance ingestment is a lifestyle and health issue- a holistic issue that cannot and should not be treated as something that is an ethical or moral issue, any more than the decision to be a couch potato or having promiscous sex. It is an issue that cannot be improved without realizing that drug use and drug abuse is inevitable within a population, and what needs to be aimed for is harm reduction through rational, factual information!

Of course, I'm probably typing all of this for naught, since the blindness of the legislation and the brutality of the uneducated folks working in the educationa and police systems right now, refuse to even recognize the existence of the content of what I am saying, much less consider a different approach.

..."Here Kids- here's a free voucher for a Big Mac and Coke since you've sat here listening to us preach for the past hour."... Yeah, great policy (*sarcasm intended*)

DARE Should Be Discontinued

[Yardley]

DARE Should Be Discontinued

The War on Drugs and DARE are failures

Reality Check Due In Drug Prevention
The New York Times
By Richard Rothstein

September 27, 2000 - Drug use by our youth is a problem that cries out for commitment, diligence, and honesty by school administrators and elected officials. Instead, for far too long, our drug-prevention policies have been driven by mindless adherence to a wasteful, ineffective, feel-good program, Drug Abuse Resistance Education DARE. DARE has been a huge public-relations success, but a failure at accomplishing the goal of long-term drug-abuse prevention.

Before taxpayers' money is spent for drug prevention, any program receiving the funds should prove its worth.

Our school administrators and elected leaders should insist on no less. However, with DARE, the moneyas well as the crucial opportunities to implement programs that actually workhas been blown.

In a recent guest column appearing in this newspaper, Glenn Levant, the president of DARE America, stated that "DARE has become the most successful drug abuse and violence reduction program in the nation..." He is accurate, but only if "success" is based on the amount of tax and foundation money spent on a program or the number of schools that have used the program.

However, if "success" is based on the effectiveness of a program in reaching the goal of reduced drug abuse over the long-term, DARE has been a dismal failure, according to numerous published studies.

In a Kokomo, Ind., study, researchers found that the level of drug use among DARE graduates was almost identical to the usage among non-DARE students. The only statistically meaningful difference was that more DARE students reported recent use of marijuana than those who had not been through the DARE program.

The Department of Justice commissioned the Research Triangle Institute RTI to evaluate DARE. Its published findings reflect that DARE students use more marijuana than non-DARE students.

The RTI concluded that DARE's core-curriculum effect on the use of other drugs, except tobacco, is not statistically significant. According to the RTI, DARE might very well be taking the place of other, more beneficial, drug-prevention programs that adolescents otherwise could be receiving.

When the City of Oakland decided to dump DARE after spending more than 600,000 per year, the director of Oakland's Family Council on Drug Awareness noted, "The bottom line is that DARE is an expensive program that seems to be making the situation worse."

In the longest follow-up study conducted regarding the effectiveness of DARE, the results of which were published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, the researchers noted that "[t]he widespread popularity of DARE is especially noteworthy, given the lack of evidence for its efficacy." They repeated the findings of many other researchers: "[T]he preponderance of evidence suggests that DARE has no long-term effect on drug use."

After it became apparent I was going to terminate Salt Lake City's involvement in the DARE program, several people came to complain at the City Council meeting on July 11. Among them were the director of DARE for the state of Utah, officers of the Utah Council for Crime Prevention, several DARE officers, and a member of the Salt Lake City School Board. Although they all spoke passionately for the continuation of DARE, not one of them made reference to any research published in a peer-reviewed journal demonstrating the effectiveness of DARE. In fact, the Salt Lake City school board member said she was "appalled" because I provided my research to the school board, yet she failed to mention any research to support her apparently intuitive notion that DARE accomplishes its objective.

Drug prevention is too important to be left to those who refuse to become familiar with the research -- or with the availability of other programs that have been proved to work. The DARE program, and those who have advocated it to the exclusion of effective programs, should be held accountable to the public.

Most important, our community should demand that our schools replace DARE with research-based programs that will help us attain our goal of significantly reduced drug abuse among our youth.

Among those programs are Life Skills Training LST, Students Taught Awareness and Resistance STAR, and Athletes Training and Learning to Avoid Steroids ATLAS. I have provided information concerning these programs and their effectiveness to the Salt Lake City school board.

Our common goal is to cut drug abuse among our youth.

A means of helping to accomplish that goal is to implement in our schools drug-prevention programs that actually work. Those who fail to insist on effective drug-prevention programs in our schools are betraying our youth and our community.

And those who are unfamiliar with the research and insist on retaining DARE in our schools simply because it is a "popular" program are not part of the drug-abuse solution; they are part of the problem.

--

Re:DARE Should Be Discontinued

[Yardley]

Oops, accidently posted the Salt Lake City newspaper article. Here's what you want to read:

REALITY CHECK IS OVERDUE IN PREVENTING DRUG ABUSE

AL GORE admits and George W. Bush implies youthful drug use. So should schools adopt a "do as I say, not as I do" drug curriculum, or seek another approach?

Drugs are dangerous, especially for youths whose families, peers or neighborhoods do not create pressure for responsible choices. And drugs are illegal.

But many successful adults used drugs casually. And experimentation by adolescents, most of whom still turn out O.K., continues. The 1990's saw teenage drug use grow while crime by youths declined.

Effective drug education is needed, but most programs exaggerate dangers and condemn use so harshly that youths who fail at total abstinence are not helped. This approach may not work.

Some efforts to reduce teenage drinking or early sex seem smarter. Underage drinking is illegal but colleges and a few high schools have "safe ride" programs with "no questions asked." It is contradictory to offer trips home from alcoholic parties and tell teenagers not to drink, but the mixed message can save lives.

Likewise, health teachers urge sexual abstinence, yet some high schools also distribute condoms. Delay sex, they say, but if you go ahead, be safe. When AIDS seems to threaten, consistency is a lower priority.

But "just say no" dominates drug education. A common program is DARE Drug Abuse Resistance Education, used in two-thirds of all districts at a cost of nearly 1 billion. DARE is taught by police officers, mostly in the fifth and sixth grades. The White House drug policy director, Barry R. McCaffrey, calls it "the premier drug prevention program."

Yet researchers find it does not work. DARE gets children to parrot responses about how terrible drugs are, but they then apparently use drugs at the same rate as non- DARE students. Some evidence suggests that DARE-trained adolescents use drugs even more.

Critics worry that DARE uses such exaggeration that once children realize they were misled, they may discount even true messages. The DARE workbook says marijuana users "are slow, are dull, have little ambition." But 10-year-olds know of older siblings, parents, even presidents, who used it without becoming dull or ambitionless. Children must then choose between DARE and their own observations. DARE is unlikely to prevail.

Other official warnings are also troubling. Advertising sponsored by Mr. McCaffrey's office tells children, if you use marijuana "it will kill your mother." Official "tips" urge parents to say, "If you took drugs it would break my heart."

Parents should think twice before heeding such advice. Although parents do not want children to try drugs, half of all teenagers do. Parents should insist that children have safe places to go with friends and that they know not to drive when "high." But threats of parental suicide and heartbreak may lead to secret experimentation in risky settings or with friends that parents neither know nor approve.

Official policy is puzzling because "just say no" has a long history of failure. Before Prohibition, schools exaggerated alcohol's dangers. A textbook said that in adult beer drinkers, "a slight cold brings on a fatal pneumonia." Children who saw parents drink beer and survive colds then ignored other temperance messages.

A 1930's Bureau of Narcotics campaign warned that marijuana would cause teenagers to commit vicious crimes. The bureau promoted a 1936 commercial film, "Tell Your Children," warning that marijuana caused teenagers to rape, murder and commit suicide. The film's claims were so excessive that it was later rereleased as a satire and shown widely on college campuses, now titled "Reefer Madness."

In 1991, the General Accounting Office found no evidence that "just say no" teaching was more effective in reducing drug use than programs that recognized teenage behavior but tried to limit it.

Some curriculums may be more effective than DARE. Teachers can give realistic information about the harm drugs do, and integrate health with other lessons. But no programs have yet navigated the problem of how to counsel against drugs while also supporting youths who ignore the advice.

Mayor Ross Anderson of Salt Lake City recently prohibited his police force from taking part in DARE work. Schools should not "moralize and exaggerate, but provide students with the basis for making decisions to avoid drugs," he said.

Salt Lake City is not the only city to reconsider DARE. But in most places, this ineffective and costly program still holds sway.

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Re:Has DARE been effective?

[mad_clown]

I'm two years into university now, and as such, I haven't been in D.A.R.E. for a very, very long time. Perhaps it's changed since the days when I was there, but as I remember it, we spend alot of time practicing "assertive techniques," such as the following:

Insidious Druggie: Hey, wanna smoke some dope?

Assertive Kid: No! Let's go play some basketball instead!

Insidious Druggie: Hey that sounds like alot more fun than wasting my life doing drugs!

Assertive Kid: Cool!

As you can clearly see, at least back when I was in D.A.R.E., the situations kids were tought to react to absolutely unrealistic to begin with. In my experience, and opinoin, D.A.R.E. teaches kids to be snitches (i.e. report people who you think might be drug users/dealers to your parents, teachers, or the authorities), and teaches them a host of overexaggerated factoids meant to scare impressionable young minds into not using substances. Maybe it works on some people, but observation and common sense dictates that people who are going to use drugs are going to use them regardless of whether or not someone tells them not to. D.A.R.E., and indeed the whole "war on drugs" is a futile and senseless waste of taxpayer dollars.

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D.A.R.E. is a Profit-Making Business

[billstewart]

D.A.R.E. was founded by Daryl Gates, the infamous Los Angeles police chief. It's a huge profit-making business - T-Shirts, bumper stickers, classroom material. That business is theoretically separate from the police departments, who also get to collect lots of money in police overtime for teaching school D.A.R.E. classes. Yes, your schools are spending their education money funding cops instead of trained teachers teaching about drugs - is that a good idea in general, much less because police are in the warring-against-drugs business instead of the education business? And do you think kids are going to ask cops potentially incriminating questions, like "my friend tried some marijuana and was stoned for a couple of days - is that normal?" Tough enough getting them to ask teachers.

You've probably seen the T-shirt "D.A.R.E. - I turned in my parents and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt"? Orange County CA cops busted a local hemp store for selling them, and confiscated all their shirts, claiming it was a trademark violation. So much for Supreme Court cases on parody and First Amendment protection.

Here's a Northernlights search URL for "Parents Against D.A.R.E., a parents group opposing this scam.