TRUTH ON DRUGS

Penny Lofton offered excellent advice in her Oct. 22 column, "Our
kids are listening."

The importance of parental involvement in reducing adolescent drug
use cannot be overstated. School-based extracurricular activities
also have been shown to reduce use. They keep kids busy during the
hours they're most likely to get into trouble.

In order for drug prevention efforts to effectively reduce harm, they
must be reality-based. The most popular drug, and the one most
closely associated with violent behavior, is often overlooked by
parents. That drug is alcohol, and it takes far more lives each year
than all illegal drugs combined.

Alcohol may be legal, but it's still the No. 1 drug problem.

For decades, school-based drug prevention efforts have been dominated
by sensationalist programs like Drug Abuse Resistance Education. Good
intentions are no substitute for effective drug education.
Independent evaluations of DARE have found the program to be either
ineffective or counterproductive. The scare tactics used do more harm
than good.

Students who realize they've been lied to about marijuana may make
the mistake of assuming that harder drugs like cocaine are relatively
harmless as well. This is a recipe for disaster.

Drug education programs must be reality-based or they may backfire
when kids are inevitably exposed to drug use among their peers. The
following U.S. Government Accounting Office report to confirm my
claims regarding DARE: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d03172r.pdf.

Robert Sharpe

Policy Analyst Common Sense for Drug Policy

Washington, D.C.