cannabisnews.com: DARE's Dying Gasps? DARE's Dying Gasps? Posted by FoM on August 28, 2000 at 07:24:24 PT By James Bovard Source: Washington Times The nation's most popular drug education program may be on the ropes. The Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program is increasingly being tossed out of school systems as the evidence becomes overwhelmingly of its failure to deter drug use. DARE was the brainchild of Los Angeles Police Department chief Daryl Gates, who launched the program in the early 1980s. More than 20 million students receive DARE training each school day; DARE is taught in every state and in three-quarters of the nation's school districts. The DARE curriculum is taught by police primarily to fifth and sixth graders, though children in kindergarten and in high school also receive DARE instruction. The police are supposed to serve as role models and trusted confidants. America is deluged with DARE paraphernalia — including bears, bumper stickers, buttons, hats, and jeeps. DARE has everything — except good results. Many independent experts have found that DARE miserably fails students. • The federal Bureau of Justice Assistance paid $300,000 to the Research Triangle Institute (RTI), a North Carolina research firm, to analyze DARE's effectiveness. The RTI study found that DARE failed to significantly reduce drug use. Researchers warned that "DARE could be taking the place of other, more beneficial drug-use curricula." • Dennis Rosenbaum, professor of criminal justice studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, surveyed and tracked 1,800 kids who had DARE training and concluded in 1998 that "suburban students who participated in DARE reported significantly higher rates of drug use . . . than suburban students who did not participate in the program." • A 1999 study by the California legislative analyst's office "concluded that DARE didn't keep children from using drugs. In fact, it found that suburban kids who took DARE were more likely than others to drink, smoke and take drugs," the Los Angeles Times reported. • A 1999 University of Kentucky study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, examined the effect of DARE on students' behavior over the subsequent 10 years. The report concluded: "Our results are consistent in documenting the absence of beneficial effects associated with the DARE program. This was true whether the outcome consisted of actual drug use or merely attitudes toward drug use." One Kentucky researcher observed: "The only difference was that those who received DARE reported slightly lower levels of self-esteem at age 20." Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson recently denounced DARE as "a fraud on the people of America." Mr. Anderson, who yanked DARE from Salt Lake City schools, complained: "For far too long, drug-prevention policies have been driven by mindless adherence to a wasteful, ineffective, feel-good program. DARE has been a huge public-relations success but a failure at accomplishing the goal of long-term drug-abuse prevention." Dare America President Glenn Levant defends DARE by pointing to the reported 13 percent decline in teen-age drug use in the most recent annual survey. However, the percentage of eighth-graders who used marijuana, cocaine and LSD tripled between 1991 and 1997. DARE cannot claim credit for the most recent decline without accepting blame for the huge increase in the preceding years — at a time when DARE already saturated the nation's public schools. DARE also suffered a stunning defeat in April that could cripple its ability to muzzle criticism. Federal Judge Virginia Phillips, in a case involving DARE America's libel suit against Rolling Stone magazine, ruled there was "substantial truth" to the charges that DARE had sought to "suppress scientific research" critical of DARE and "attempted to silence researchers at the Research Triangle Institute, editors at the American Journal of Public Health, and producers at 'Dateline: NBC.' " DARE's feel-good photo opportunities are no substitute for effective drug education. American children deserve something more than a drug program that fails to persuasively inform and warn them of the danger of narcotics. Politicians, school officials and police need the courage to admit DARE is a dud. James Bovard is the author of the just-published "Feeling Your Pain: The Explosion & Abuse of Government Power in the Clinton-Gore Years" (St. Martin's Press).Published: August 27, 2000Source: Washington Times (DC)Website: http://www.washtimes.com/Contact: letters washtimes.com © 2000 News World Communications, Inc. CannabisNews DARE Archives:http://cannabisnews.com/news/list/DARE.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #2 posted by Kanabys on August 29, 2000 at 08:21:39 PT Whatz next?????? Ok, so they scrap DARE. So, what are they going to put in place next? I can't even imagine what the minds of antis could come up with, but I know it will fail and cause lots of harm and misery for us all. Sorry to be a downer, but....the beat goes on...... [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by r.earing on August 28, 2000 at 08:06:45 PT: told ya so I've been saying this about dare since it's inception.Some students I know began taking drugs by stealing the drug samples from the visiting dare officer!Without him,they wouldn't have had access. [ Post Comment ] Post Comment Name: Optional Password: E-Mail: Subject: Comment: [Please refrain from using profanity in your message] Link URL: Link Title: