FIGHTING DRUG ABUSE

To the Editor:

Re "Antidrug Program Says It Will Adopt a New Strategy" (front page, Feb. 15):

Drug Abuse Resistance Education, known as DARE, should be commended on
finally recognizing that its approach to drug abuse prevention was ineffective.

Schools interested in offering their students an effective drug abuse
prevention program do not need to wait for DARE to recreate itself.
Effective alternatives to DARE have already been rigorously tested and
shown to produce lasting reductions in teenage drug use.

Given the magnitude of the drug problem in our country, it is vitally
important that we use our limited prevention resources to support
approaches that have already been tested and demonstrated to work.

GILBERT J. BOTVIN

New York, Feb. 15, 2001

The writer is director of the Institute for Prevention Research, Weill
Medical College of Cornell University.