DARE-ING TO BASH DARE

To the Editor:

I am writing with regard to the article "City police DARE-ing students,"
(NDN, Thur. Mar. 8). My first criticism is that the article reads almost
like an advertisement for the highly costly, ineffective and dangerous DARE
program.

In the article, Nelson city police officer Bill Andreaschuk is quoted as
saying that "the program has had an impact since its inception in 1983,"
implying that the impact has been positive, when in reality the DARE
program has been shown to be a colossal failure - even from the perspective
of anti-drug warmongers - in more than 16 highly-respected, independent
studies. Included in these studies is a 1999 West Vancouver Police report
which concluded that "in the majority of studies where drug use was
examined, reseasrchers concluded that the DARE program either had little or
no effect on drug use..." Among the researchers, many of whom studied only
the best operating DARE programs around, there was unanimous consent. The
Rand Corporation, the US General Accounting Office, the North Carolina
Justice Department - organization after organization - have found DARE has
either insignificant or no effect whatsoever on drug use among teens. Under
questioning from the press, even the ashamed leaders of the DARE program
have acknowledged their program's ineffectiveness.

Some studies even found an increase in drug use among those students taking
the program. In fact, DARE was based upon an untested model developed by
researcher Ruth Rich, who later found that the model actually encouraged
children to "fiddle with drugs." Regardless of concerns, the project was
pushed through by DARE founder and California Police Chief Daryl Gates.

Because of DARE's ever more widely acknowledged uselessness and dangers
there are reports of a large range of officials who have cancelled the
program, including a US teacher, Rudi Krause, who has even started a
campaign to rid the educational system of DARE. Principals in some school
districts have refused to have the program in their schools, facing down
opposition from anti-drug zealots who stand to make loads of cash by the
programs continuation.

The BC Provincial Government currently spends hundreds of thousands of
taxpayers' dollars on this ineffective American-based program that
essentially encourages children to do drugs while miseducating them about
the dangers. DARE founder Gates saw no difference between marijuana and
crack cocaine. It is exactly this misinformed reefer-madness hysteria that
has students laughing behind the backs of officers who do little more than
receive government funding to make themselves look like classroom clowns
while earning the disrespect of yet another generation of children. Whether
you are for the drug war or against it, the DARE program is a futile waste
and should be discontinued.

Dan Loehndorf (aka Reverend Damuzi), Nelson Creston candidate for the BC
Marijuana Party