Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2001 14:26:13 -0700
From: lvnorml@yahoo.com ("Las Vegas NORML")
Subject: Good Article fro citylife - Dare to dump DARE
To: Undisclosed.Recipients
Reply-To: lvnorml@yahoo.com ("Las Vegas NORML")

Dare to Dump DARE=20 04/26/01 Email this story to a friend

By Randall Shelden=20

Well, the cat is finally out of the bag! The truth about DARE has = finally been accepted by even some of its strongest supporters. The = academic research has been very consistent about the effects of DARE, = which stands for Drug Abuse Resistance Education. It has been a = miserable failure, to say the least, but it has continued to be = well-received by the mainstream media and all of the "true believers" = out there. The federal government finally put an end to the funding of = this program. The propaganda put forth by its ardent supporters even had = millions of parents, believing that their kids were not using drugs = because they had graduated from a DARE program, go so far as to put the = now ubiquitous bumper stickers on their cars, proclaiming that "My child = is a proud graduate of DARE"!=20

What these parents failed to realize is that, statistically speaking, = their child would have not used drugs even if they had never been = exposed to a drug program; or conversely, they may have eventually used = drugs partly because they attended the program. Why? Simply because drug = use is the result of a complex set of factors=97family, community, = economic, political, historical. The fact that most Americans refuse to = get into their collective heads is that drug use is normal in this = society. Everybody at one time or another uses or, more correctly, = experiments with some kind of drug, including alcohol and tobacco. And = DARE was based in part on the erroneous belief that the way to combat = drug abuse is total abstience.=20

DARE got its start in 1983 and was the brainchild of then-Los Angeles = Police Chief Daryl Gates. This should have caused some suspicion right = away. Gates became infamous when, after a series of deaths to black men = because of the use of the police "choke hold," he offered this theory of = why so many had died: "We may be finding that in some blacks when [the = carotid choke hold] is applied the veins or arteries do not open up as = fast as they do on normal [sic] people." So Blacks are not "normal" = people. This logic extended to Gates' repressive activities toward = alleged gang members in South Central, which included the use of tanks = and "battering rams" and even a mobile booking station near the Los = Angeles Coliseum, resulting in the arrests of more than 1,200 black = youths on such serious charges as "loitering" and "curfew." So here we = have Gates suggesting that DARE will "take a bite" out of drug use by = sending his storm troopers right into the elementary schools to warn = kids about the dangers of drug use.=20

This came at the height of the "Just Say No" mantra started by Nancy = Reagan. You know this one, the simplistic slogan that was based upon the = naive belief that anyone, regardless of their life circumstances, their = environments, their genetics, can just walk away from temptation. And it = became a public relations coup of sorts for the embattled Gates to send = in some of his finest, most clean-cut young officers, decked out in = their uniforms to impress the little kiddies in their fifth-grade class = for one hour per week for 17 weeks, ostensibly teaching the little ones = how to resist drugs. The course even had a graduation ceremony! = Eventually the program spread to all 50 states with plenty of federal = money, which bought plenty of advertising and sales of merchandise, and = they even had an annual conference with plenty of "feel good" speakers = telling everyone how wonderfully successful DARE was.=20

With so much hoopla and propaganda, not to mention all the positive = attention heaped upon its supporters and their true believers, was it = any surprise that they dismissed the research as coming from = "pointy-headed academics" and turned around and published their own, = in-house "evaluations" that said it was working. One of their reports = "discovered" that the fifth-grade kids who went through the program knew = more about the consequences of drug use than kids who did not pass = through. Good grief, what an amazing scientific discovery that was! But = it was no wonder they knew more since such information was part of the = curriculum! And of course their famous rejoinder was always along the = lines of "if it prevents just one child from using drugs..." Well, = frankly, if some drug was only that effective, the Food and Drug = Administration would never approve it!=20

Finally, the consistent reports of the academic researchers could no = longer be ignored. One study found no significant difference in = subsequent drug use between kids who went through the program and those = who did not, while still another (University of Chicago six-year = follow-up) found that the positive effects wore off by their senior year = and in fact some had actually increased their drug use. Still another = evaluation (a 10-year follow-up) by the University of Kentucky found it = had no effects on students by the time they reached their 20th birthday. = The mayor of Salt Lake City even went so far as to claim the program was = a "complete fraud" and a "waste of money," while it "fritters away the = opportunity to implement a good drug-prevention program in schools."=20

Other cities have canceled DARE for similar reasons.=20

So what can we conclude, after 18 years of DARE failures? We had better = beware of at least two things before we jump on the bandwagon. First, = never trust in simplistic "magic bullets" like DARE. There is no "magic = bullet" for any of our problems, especially drug abuse. Second, too many = people become "true believers" that allow their own egos to become too = identified with their pet programs so that they do not accept obvious = failure. There are plenty of other ways to effectively reduce drug = abuse=97the scientific literature provides many examples.=20

Randall G. Shelden is a professor of criminal justice at UNLV.=20


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