DARE AS REAL AS IT GETS

I am writing in response to the Open Column response on April 7 concerning
the "drug war" and the DARE program.

The letter, written by Robert Sharpe of The Lindesmith Center of
Washington, D.C., was commenting on the appearance of Gen. Barry McCaffrey
at Westminster College and Forrest Rose's column.

I'm impressed that the program director of the Lindesmith Center would be
interested in Rose's column. Rose must certainly have more clout than even
I would have imagined. I'm trying to think of why someone from Washington,
D.C., would feel the need to respond to a local article.

If that is the crux of his job, Sharpe must be a very busy man.

Sharpe says "every methodologically sound" - meaning the ones he agrees
with - "evaluation of DARE has found the program to be either ineffective
or counterproductive." The research has gone nothing like that, in that
there are dozens of studies that go in both directions as to effectiveness,
the most peer-reviewed of which acknowledged that DARE has a lasting effect
when follow-up is consistent in the upper grades. The claim of
counterproductivity was cited in one study about eight or nine years ago
and, of course, is restated over and over by those who feel DARE is "an
example of drug warrior misinformation."

None of the critics of the program, as far as I have been able to
determine, has even attended or observed a DARE class.

This includes our biggest critics locally: Dan Viets and Mitch Moore. They
have both been content to regurgitate the NORML - the National Organization
for Reform of Marijuana Laws - and Libertarian party line of "education
should be done by professional educators," when even the detractors of the
program have specifically stated that having police officers teach a
prevention curriculum is the gold standard of delivery systems for such
information.

Sharpe says "anti-drug education programs need to be reality-based." I and
the 40,000 DARE officers nationwide couldn't agree more. Teaching kids that
heroin is bad is important - and a part of the DARE curriculum - but it is
even more important to teach that the drugs they are most likely to
experiment with first are those that have a higher overall incidence of
addiction consequences. Tobacco kills more people than all other drugs
combined.

Alcohol fuels a vast variety of social ills. The 400 chemicals found in
marijuana smoke, some of which are carcinogens such as found in tobacco,
might have long-term effects that we are only now discovering.

"Scare tactics," Mr. Sharpe? Being scared is a reaction to information
presented, not the information itself.

If an individual finds fear from the information about drug use, perhaps
that is the body's way of telling us that we should pay attention.

Finding an alternative to that fear - in the form of education - is what we
in the prevention field hope for. We're not looking for "feel-good" programs.

We're looking for "work-good" programs.

DARE, when presented as a full program from kindergarten through high
school and supported by active, involved parents, works.