DARE GRADS JUST AS LIKELY TO SMOKE, DRINK, OR USE DRUGS

Re: DARE critics have agenda to legalize marijuana, Letters, June 13.

Cpl. Sean Neary's letter in support of the DARE program contained no
information whatsoever about whether or not the DARE program is
effective in discouraging drug use amongst its graduates. Neary made
reference to a number of research studies but cleverly didn't say what
those studies concluded.

Research has consistently pointed out that DARE is ineffective.

A 10-year follow-up study, published in 1999, compared graduates of DARE
with students who had simply learned about drugs in Health class from
their teacher. Those graduates, at age 20, were just as likely as the
others to be smoking, drinking or using illegal drugs. The senior
researcher, Donald Lyman at the University of Kentucky, and his
colleagues concluded: "there appears to be no reliable short-term,
long-term, early adolescent, or young adult positive outcomes associated
with receiving the DARE intervention."

The Surgeon General in the United States reported in January that
programs like DARE do not work.

In February, the head of DARE made the extraordinary admission the
program has not been effective and that the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation had granted DARE a $13.7 million grant to bring the
curriculum up to date and to scientifically evaluate its usefulness.

Alan Randell,
Victoria, B.C.