SETTING STRAIGHT MISINFORMATION ABOUT DARE ANTI-DRUG EFFORTS

Bobby Charles' Sept. 8 article "Defending DARE . . . and apple pie" is
right on target.

Your readers also need to know that the pattern of destruction used by
proponents of drug legalization is well-documented even in the courts.
Effective anti-drug programs are not helpful to drug legalizers' goals.
Their misinformation campaigns frequently make headlines and, we believe,
they have done immeasurable harm to America's efforts to prevent drug use -
especially among teens.

Attempts to destroy Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or DARE, have been
particularly vicious, leading DARE to file a $10 million lawsuit against
writer Stephen Glass, the author of some anti-DARE articles published in
the New Republic (March 3, 1997) and Rolling Stone (March 5, 1998).

The New Republic fired Stephen Glass when the scandal became public. In a
review of his work, the New Republic discovered that at least 27 of his 41
published articles were entirely or partially made up. This was described
by Vanity Fair magazine as "a breathtaking web of deception that emerged as
the most sustained fraud in modern journalism."

As part of the agreement to dismiss the libel suit, Glass wrote a letter of
apology, agreed to a substantial monetary settlement and also agreed to
submit to an extensive interview by DARE America to answer questions about
the origins, preparation and editing of his work on DARE.

His January 25, 1999, letter of apology states, "I want to express my
regret and apology for falsely disparaging DARE in the above-referenced
articles by willfully fabricating several incidents and quotes about DARE
and its supporters in the articles, mostly attributed to anonymous sources.
I did this in order to sensationalize the stories without regard to the
harm and detriment my fabrications and falsehoods would cause to DARE and
people affiliated with DARE.

"As the articles reflect, I communicated frequently with people and
organizations whom I knew to support, and who (in some cases) told me they
supported, legalization of illegal drugs and were anti-DARE. In preparing
the articles, I gave credence to what I heard from the anti-DARE people and
did not credit the information DARE supplied me. Officials at DARE provided
me with information such as copies of evaluations of the program's
effectiveness, most of which I discounted and was not ever published in the
articles.

"I further acknowledge that the March l997 article in The New Republic,
which contains many of the same fabrications as are in my March l998
article for Rolling Stone, played a significant role in attracting the
interest of Rolling Stone and its editors. In editing the Rolling Stone
article, I referred Rolling Stone's fact-checkers to my prior article in
The New Republic, or to sources cited therein."

Unfortunately, most who read or hear the pro-drug side of these issues
never hear the corrections, or in some cases, the corrections are never
made. We applaud Mr. Charles for his outspoken article and The Washington
Times for its candid, unbiased reporting on these issues.

Joyce Nalepka, President, America Cares Inc., Silver Spring

Joyce Nalepka is also a founder and president of Drug-Free Youth -
America's Challenge and was president of the National Federation of Parents
for Drug Free Youth, the organization chaired by Nancy Reagan during her
tenure as first lady.