STRATEGIES IN THE WAR ON DRUGS DOUBTED

Zero-tolerance and DARE at Issue

WASHINGTON - Two of the most popular approaches to controlling drug abuse
in US schools don't work very well, according to a survey released
yesterday by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse.

The most popular, Drug Abuse Resistance Education, DARE, shows "little
evidence ... of any extended impact," the center concluded. Another
frequently used approach, known as zero-tolerance, based on harsh penalties
for even minor drug abuse, often discourages students from turning in
substance abusers, it said.

The center, a nonprofit institute associated with Columbia University in
New York, said 61 percent of US high school-age teens and 40 percent of
middle school children say drugs are used, kept, and sold in their schools.
The group called its report the "first comprehensive analysis of all
available data on substance use in our schools and among our students."

The center, headed by Joseph Califano, who was secretary of Health,
Education, and Welfare in the Carter administration, acknowledges that the
amount of reported drug use among teens nationwide generally has stayed the
same or declined in recent years, except for some new drugs such as Ecstasy.

Califano said drug abuse would decline more sharply if parents stopped
leaving the problem to school-sponsored programs such as DARE and involved
themselves more.

"Parents raise hell and refuse to send their kids to classrooms infested
with asbestos," Califano said at a news conference. "Yet every day they
ship their children off to schools riddled with illegal drugs."

Zero-tolerance policies in schools, which require stiff penalties even for
minor drug offenses, don't work well either, the center found.

The tough penalties discourage students from turning in their drug-abusing
peers; youths expelled for drug abuse often wind up on the streets or in
alternative schools where drugs are plentiful, it said.

Califano's group also wants tobacco smoking and excessive drinking, whether
by adults or their children, to be considered substance abuse.

The center's survey, "Malignant Neglect: Substance Abuse and America's
Schools," is based on 10,000 random telephone interviews nationwide with
parents, teachers, and students, coupled with reviews of outside research
on the effectiveness of conventional drug abuse-education programs.