cannabisnews.com: Anti-Drug Program Ineffective, Newspaper Study Say





Anti-Drug Program Ineffective, Newspaper Study Say
Posted by FoM on February 27, 2000 at 13:54:09 PT
By The Associated Press
Source: Detroit Free Press
A report published Sunday says that a national drug-prevention program has been ineffective in dissuading teen-agers from using alcohol or drugs. Teens in districts that offered the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program that promotes zero use were no less likely to try drugs and alcohol that teens from districts without DARE, according to a study conducted by The Detroit News. 
The program is given to 36 million youth annually in 52 nations. DARE America executive director Glenn Levant said although a national review proving the program's effectiveness has not been conducted, most students, parents and teachers who have been surveyed say they liked the program. "When they are happy with the program, then I know it's doing good," Levant said. The program, usually given to fifth graders an hour a week for 16 weeks by uniformed police officers, teaches different ways to say no to alcohol, drugs and tobacco. The study of 30,000 metropolitan Detroit students compared drug and alcohol use of self-reported teens in 17 districts that offered the program in their elementary school to teens in 16 districts that did not, the newspaper said in a copyright story. The study compared the number of students who said they had ever tried alcohol, illegal drugs or inhalants. It found no statistically difference between students in DARE and non-DARE districts. "I am absolutely convinced the program works. We may not save everyone, but I know we are saving some," Livonia DARE Sgt. Paul Wood said. Not everyone is as certain that the zero-tolerance message is working. Harper Woods was one of the first districts in Michigan to implement the program during the 1980s, said police Chief Larry Semple. Semple canceled the program in 1996 because of a staff shortage and lack of evidence that DARE worked. "It's a feel-good program," Semple said. "It's good PR to get police interacting with the children. But there's no hard data to support its long-term effect on keeping kids off drugs and alcohol." A University of Michigan study conducted in 1999 found the percentage of high school seniors who had used any illegal drug in their lifetime was 54.7 percent, the highest level in more than a decade. Marijuana was also at its highest level at 49.7 percent. In the Detroit area, the program, sometimes paid for through tax dollars, community policing grants, and drug forfeiture money, cost more than $2 million. DARE cost about $5 a student for the workbook, T-shirt and ruler. Police time cost $20 to $50 per student. Detroit (AP) Published: February 27, 2000Copyright © 2000 Detroit Free Press Inc.Related Articles:http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/list/DARE.shtmlhttp://www.alltheweb.com/cgi-bin/asearch?type=all&query=cannabisnews+DARE
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Comment #3 posted by Alexandre Oeming on February 28, 2000 at 07:05:11 PT:
right on, Kap't
I've got this neato t-shirt that some guy in CA was selling about six years ago before DARE got him shut down on some lame, "you're using our copyrighted logo BS" shortly after he began marketing them. I'm sure glad that i got one before he had to stop selling 'em. It's absolutely beautiful and goes a little something like this: black T with the cherry-red DARE logo followed underneath in white writing: "I turned in my parents and all i got was this lousy t-shirt." People have offered to BUY it right off my back! ;p
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Comment #2 posted by CongressmanSuet on February 27, 2000 at 22:34:36 PT
Whenever I read about DARE...
  I cant help but think about the Environmentalist and his wife who were turned into the police because their spoiled brat daugghter was angry at them. He was growing MM for his wife who is on total disability. He lost his job, his future was ruined. And what was the reason they were turned in? The kid was angry at having a curfew. This is getting WAY out of hand, but thats the way the establishment likes it.
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Comment #1 posted by kaptinemo on February 27, 2000 at 14:49:53 PT
Kids telling them what they want to hear
The Soviet Union had this nifty youth organization called the Young Pioneers. From an early age, they were told about the wonders of Communism, taught to unthinkingly hate the West...and to inform authorities as to whether their parents were loyal to the cause or not. One kid did so. He was proclaimed a Hero of the Soviet Union, and a statute was erected in his town to honor him. But his parents were taken to the Gulag and were never seen again. And he hung himself a year later. So, what does this have to do with DARE? DARE America executive director Glenn Levant said although a national review proving the program's effectiveness has not been conducted, most students, parents and teachers who have been surveyed say they liked the program. "When they are happy with the program, then I know it's doing good," Levant saidAs any kid knows, it's always good policy to tell adults what they want to hear. At home. In school. And especially to people like police, who can make your life a living hell if you tell them their precious DARE program is a farce. DARE is the brainchild of LAPD Chief Darryl Gates, who publicly mused that all potheads should be taken out and shot, Soviet execution style, with a bullet to the back of the head. And DARE shares more than that with Communism; it fosters the creation of children-as-informers on their parents. Families have been ripped apart because naive children (or malicious ones) believed that their parents would only be 'talked to' about their drug use when instead they were carted off to prison and the kids stuck in a foster home. All for their own good, of course. The only thing missing from DARE is the red kerchiefs and the goose-stepping of the Soviet Young Pioneers.
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