Pubdate: Fri, 28 Jun 2002 Source: Revelstoke Times Review (CN BC) Copyright: 2002 Bowes Publishers Contact: http://www.revelstoketimesreview.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2139 Author: Robert Sharpe DARE PROGRAM PANNED BY U.S. DRUG POLICY EXPERTS Editor's Note: Although we never comment on letters to the editor we do occasionally preface them if their nature warrants it. The following is such a letter. This letter was received via e-mail from an official of the Drug Policy Alliance in Washington, D.C., who had read Gregg Chamberlain's article, , that was published in last week's edition of the Revelstoke Times Review. David F. Rooney Editor ~~~~~~ While Canadian schools are just beginning to implement the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, schools in the U.S. are dropping it. Good intentions are no substitute for effective drug education. Every independent, methodologically sound evaluation of DARE has found the program to be either ineffective or counterproductive. The scare tactics used do more harm than good. Students who realize they've been lied to about marijuana often make the mistake of assuming that harder drugs like heroin are relatively harmless as well. This is a recipe for disaster. Drug education programs must be reality-based or they may backfire when kids are inevitably exposed to drug use among their peers. The importance of parental involvement in reducing adolescent drug use cannot be overstated. School-based extracurricular activities have also been shown to reduce drug use by keeping kids busy during the hours they're most prone to getting into trouble. In order for drug education to be effective it has to be credible. The most popular recreational drug and the one most often associated with violent behavior is often overlooked. That drug is alcohol, and it takes far more lives every year than all illegal drugs combined. Alcohol may be legal, but it's still the number one drug problem. References for various DARE studies can be found following my contact information. Robert Sharpe, M.P.A. Program Officer Drug Policy Alliance Washington, DC USA http://www.drugpolicy.org ~~~~~~ "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. In addition, we examined processes that are the focus of intervention and purportedly mediate the impact of DARE (e.g., self-esteem and peer resistance), and these also failed to differentiate DARE participants from nonparticipants. Thus, consistent with the earlier Clayton et al. (1996) study, there appear to be no reliable short-term, long-term, early adolescent, or young adult positive outcomes associated with receiving the DARE intervention." Source: Lynam, Donald R., Milich, Richard, et al., "Project DARE: No Effects at 10-Year Follow-Up", Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, August 1999), Vol. 67, No. 4, 590-593. A federally funded Research Triangle Institute study of Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) found that "DARE's core curriculum effect on drug use relative to whatever drug education (if any) was offered in the control schools is slight and, except for tobacco use, is not statistically significant." Source: Ennett, S.T., et al., "How Effective Is Drug Abuse Resistance Education? A Meta-Analysis of Project DARE Outcome Evaluations," American Journal of Public Health, 84: 1394-1401 (1994). Dr. Dennis Rosenbaum, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, recently completed a six-year study of 1,798 students and found that "DARE had no long-term effects on a wide range of drug use measures"; DARE does not "prevent drug use at the stage in adolescent development when drugs become available and are widely used, namely during the high school years"; and that DARE may actually be counter productive. According to the study, "there is some evidence of a boomerang effect among suburban kids. That is, suburban students who were DARE graduates scored higher than suburban students in the Control group on all four major drug use measures." Source: Rosenbaum, Dennis, Assessing the Effects of School-based Drug Education: A Six Year Multilevel Analysis of Project DARE, Abstract (April 6, 1998). - --- MAP posted-by: Alex