WV DRUG PROGRAM PANNED

Youth Advisory Committee Says DARE Ineffective And Inadequate

THE West Vancouver Youth Advisory Committee has expressed serious concerns
about the DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program.

In a report copied to West Vancouver council, school board, and police, the
Youth Advisory Committee said the program was inadequate and lacks
realistic information for students.

DARE teaches students in Grades 5, 7 and 8 how to recognize and resist peer
pressure to try alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs. The program advocates
zero tolerance for substance usage.

DARE began in Los Angeles in 1983 and is now used in 47 countries
worldwide. It came to West Vancouver in 1995. RCMP members in North
Vancouver also recently began teaching the program.

The Youth Advisory Committee feedback was compiled after members had read a
November 1999 review of the DARE program. The report, entitled The Efficacy
of the Drug Abuse Resistance Program (DARE) in West Vancouver Schools, was
compiled by local researcher Dr. Charles Curtis.

The committee's comments include the following:

DARE is "not taken seriously because the content is far too juvenile and
doesn't get to the reality of the issues (e.g. cartoon characters telling
students not to take drugs). 'Just say no' may work for young children but
is ineffective as students get older. Students need to be given the facts
to make their own decisions";

Drug and alcohol education programs should be backed by counselling
facilities and a recognition that some substance abuse is not mere
experimentation but is linked to other problems (the DARE program works on
the assumption that drug and alcohol use is linked to peer pressure);

Programs should deal with hard drugs, which are easily accessible to
students -- not just on marijuana and alcohol;

The high rate of drug and alcohol use and experimentation among older
students is a clear indication of the need for an additional secondary drug
education program.

"Obviously we're concerned (by the report)," said West Vancouver mayor and
police board chairman Ron Wood. "The youth are the most directly involved
in this. If the youth are saying it's not effective and it's not working
properly for them, somebody's got to come up with a revised program,
whatever that is."

Wood said the police board had been aware of Youth Advisory Committee
concerns prior to the publication of its report.

The Curtis review suggests a strong short-term success rate for the DARE
program within the municipality, with positive responses from the DARE
graduates and parents polled. Parents felt their children possessed the
skills to say no to drugs and were able to approach police officers with
questions or if they were in trouble.

However, some parents also shared many of the youth group's concerns: the
need for a drug education program at higher grade levels, a more realistic
portrayal of drug usage (including photographs of or exposure to addicts)
and a need for a less repetitious program using Canadian, not American,
materials.

Some parents suggested that DARE instruction should consist less of direct
teaching and more of open discussions in which children are encouraged to
express opinions. These parents "contended that DARE was presented in too
restrictive a manner and students were not motivated to think for themselves."

Curtis' review noted that many students "justified their decision not to
use DARE strategies with the explanation that they had believed that these
strategies would not have worked."

Regional results from a 1998 McCreary Centre Society survey of teen
behaviours and attitudes show that substance use and experimentation is
generally 1% to 7% higher in the West Vancouver-Garibaldi region than the
provincial average.

"By the time a kid has gone through a West Vancouver secondary school and
graduated they have every single one of them experimented with some kind of
drug," said Youth Advisory Committee chairman Derek Muller, a Grade 12
student at Sentinel.

Muller said there is "big-time negativity" whenever the DARE program is
brought up among his peers: "People enjoy mocking it. I don't know one
person who thinks DARE serves its purpose."

WVPD Const. Scott Findlay, a DARE instructor who trained in a Los Angeles
high school, said the perception of the advisory committee that DARE's
approach was "juvenile" could be due in large part to the fact that many of
them were taught the Grade 7 program because the high school curriculum was
not available at the time.

He said the new program, to be introduced at the Grade 8 level in West
Vancouver secondary schools this fall, did not feature cartoon characters
and was far more detailed about types of drugs and their effects. Findlay
said the DARE team was disappointed that the Youth Advisory Committee did
not contact them to ask any questions before writing its report.

Muller and his peers would prefer to see a more hard-hitting approach to
drug education. They were impressed with a National Film Board documentary,
Through a Blue Lens, which follows police officers in Vancouver's Downtown
Eastside interacting with long-term drug addicts.

"If you can meet or see people whose lives are affected by (drug abuse),"
said Muller, "it has so much more of a personal impact."

Several months ago, the West Vancouver school board approached WVPD DARE
team leader Sgt. Jim Almas about introducing the Blue Lens video to the
drug education program.

Almas was vehemently opposed. In a conversation with a News reporter at the
time, he said research suggested that the use of "shock tactics" did not
work. Findlay said a positive example could be better set by someone whose
life had been successful without drugs than by encounters with addicts.

West Vancouver councillors suggested Monday that perhaps a combination of
realism and DARE should be considered.

"Parents have to take responsibility as well," added Coun. Victor Durman,
who has already driven his young son through the Downtown Eastside to
witness the horrors of drug abuse firsthand. "You can't just say, 'my kid's
taken DARE so they know not to take drugs.' "

But the Youth Advisory Committee wants DARE replaced entirely.

"I'm convinced," said Muller, "that the DARE program simply isn't the way
to go and should be abolished completely. If it was removed, things
wouldn't change."