Pubdate: Sun, 10 Dec 2000
Source: Deseret News (UT)
Copyright: 2000 Deseret News Publishing Corp.
Contact:  http://www.desnews.com/
Author: Diane Urbani

MAYOR, DRUG CZAR DEBATE MERITS OF DARE PROGRAM

The nation's drug-policy director probably didn't like what he'd read 
in the New York Times about Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson. But 
before traveling to Utah this week, Gen. Barry McCaffrey arranged a 
meeting with the mayor to discuss something the two men couldn't 
disagree on more: Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or DARE.

"All the peer-reviewed research shows that DARE is a complete waste 
of money and, even worse, fritters away the opportunity to implement 
a good drug-prevention program in schools," Anderson said in the 
Sept. 16 Times article. In a later story, McCaffrey was quoted as 
calling DARE "the premier drug-prevention program." The majority of 
U.S. public school teachers use DARE, which means they bring in 
police officers to teach their drug-prevention component of their 
classes.

So there they were on Wednesday with McCaffrey in town to convene the 
White House Task Force on Drugs and Sports in Salt Lake City and to 
ask Anderson why he canceled DARE earlier this year.

"I stressed my view that we should focus our resources on what we 
know to be effective: good prevention and treatment programs," 
Anderson said.

The mayor calls DARE miserably ineffective and says he has urged Salt 
Lake District Superintendent Darline Robles to examine other 
curriculum such as the Life Skills Training program and the ATLAS 
program for high school athletes. "There are good research-based, 
effective programs that apparently don't have the lobbying efforts 
behind them that DARE does," Anderson said.

Drug Strategies, a Washington, D.C., research group, rates 
drug-prevention curricula, and gave straight A's to Life Skills 
Training and STAR (Students Taught Awareness and Resistance). It gave 
lower grades to DARE.

"General McCaffrey dismissed Drug Strategies," Anderson said. The 
drug czar questioned the organization's credibility, saying it was 
funded by New York billionaire George Soros. Soros was a major backer 
of Initiative B, the measure approved by voters in November. 
Initiative B will alter the state's forfeiture laws to increase 
protections for third-party individuals whose property is used in 
committing a crime and then seized by police.

Soros isn't behind Drug Strategies, according to Anderson; the Kansas 
Health Foundation and Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation are among its 
grantors.

Anderson also regaled McCaffrey with published studies about drug 
education around the United States. Anderson said, "I pointed out 
that there hasn't been one research article in a peer-reviewed 
journal reflecting that DARE is effective. On the other hand, there 
have been numerous peer-reviewed studies finding that DARE is 
absolutely ineffective and a waste of money. He challenged me on 
that. But he was unable to cite anything that supports his long-held 
position on DARE. I gave him my card" and told him to call if he 
found any such research.

As if the meeting were not going badly enough, another inflammatory 
topic came up.

"He'd read," said Anderson, "that I'd advocated decriminalizing 
marijuana. I do not favor decriminalization. I do favor a different 
approach, once people are in the criminal-justice system, of 
treatment and education." If we're going to stage a war on drugs, he 
added, stage it in the states.

"We're still falling very far short when half of the people in this 
country with drug problems who are seeking treatment can't get into 
treatment programs," Anderson said. At the same time we're sending 
$1.3 billion to Colombia and what we're really doing is supporting 
one side in an internal conflict. There will not be one ounce of 
difference in the supply of cocaine on our streets."

In addition to funding more treatment programs, Anderson wants 
education spending stepped up.

"My view has always been that our schools have a huge responsibility 
to provide drug-prevention education," the mayor said. As it turned 
out, that's a point on which he and McCaffrey agree. Two days 
afterward, Anderson called their meeting "honest and interesting," 
and added, "I think it was productive inasmuch as we both agree that 
performance-enhancing drugs should be eliminated from both 
professional and amateur athletics, and great strides have been made 
in the Olympic movement. (McCaffrey) has played a huge role in that."

Anderson sees his own role as continuing to urge the Salt Lake School 
District to adopt a "research-based, proven, effective 
drug-prevention component, rather than a feel-good, 'just say no' 
program like DARE."
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MAP posted-by: Josh Sutcliffe