Study adds to doubts on D.A.R.E. program

Twelve years ago, when D.A.R.E.'s new approach to drug education was just
beginning to capture the imagination of Americans, the city of Lexington,
Ky., ran out of funding after installing D.A.R.E. officers in 23 schools,
leaving eight schools to manage on their own. But 10 years later, the
children who didn't have the Drug Abuse Resistance Education curriculum
were just as likely to abuse drugs as the kids who went through D.A.R.E.,
according to a study to be released today by psychologists at the
University of Kentucky.

The study is the latest voice in a chorus of criticism from social
scientists who say D.A.R.E. - the country's most widely used drug education
program - has never demonstrated its effectiveness.

But in Massachusetts, at least, the rising stack of academic criticism has
done little to diminish D.A.R.E.'s popularity among parents or the police
officers who administrate it. Although five Massachusetts cities or towns
have abandoned D.A.R.E. in recent years, and Burlington, Vt., followed suit
in May, 93 percent of Massachusetts municipalities remain firmly within
"the D.A.R.E. fold," according to Sheila Foley, the program's state
coordinator.

From the researchers' point of view, that continued enthusiasm shows
Americans' stubborn resistance to apply science to drug policy.

"If you talk to people, they say, `My kid doesn't use drugs, and he's gone
through D.A.R.E..' They're not being good scientists," said Donald Lynam,
lead author of the study, published in the August issue of the American
Psychological Association's Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.

"What I keep thinking of is if D.A.R.E. were a drug, I wonder if it could
have FDA approval based on its efficacy? I don't think it could," he said.

The Kentucky results fall in line with an earlier study showing that
D.A.R.E.'s effects were measurable but short-lived. Last year, a six-year
follow-up by University of Illinois criminologist Dennis Rosenbaum showed
D.A.R.E. had a substantial failure rate, especially in the suburbs. Studies
from the University of Colorado and North Carolina's Research Triangle
Institute have drawn the same conclusion.

One recent study, from Ohio State University, gave D.A.R.E. credit for
producing students 50 percent less likely to become high-risk drug abusers.

But the decisions about D.A.R.E. are made on the local level. To the
program's defenders, such as Wakefield D.A.R.E. officer Bob Ramocki, the
studies are more than canceled out by classroom experience. And all the
studies have a built-in problem, he said How do you measure prevention?

About 12 years ago, the first Massachusetts towns began adopting D.A.R.E.'s
idea of shifting the burden for drug education from health teachers to
uniformed police officers. Using funds from the state tobacco tax, most
towns involved in the program have a full-time D.A.R.E. officer - Ramocki
even has an office in the middle school. One positive byproduct, say local
D.A.R.E. officers, is that schoolchildren are on a comfortable footing with
the police.

"It used to be that when a police cruiser pulled up in front of a high
school, people would think there was trouble," said Sergeant Vin Macchia, a
D.A.R.E. officer in Lynnfield. "Now, because of D.A.R.E., they think it's
ordinary."

And Ramocki traced the criticism of D.A.R.E. in part to people who "don't
believe that police officers should be in the school teaching their kids."

That's not the point, said Joel H. Brown, who heads the Center for
Educational Research and Development at University of California at
Berkeley, and whose 1995 study for the California State Department of
Education took the first serious shot at D.A.R.E.-type programs. Brown's
criticism is not confined to D.A.R.E., but applies broadly to the
zero-tolerance approach. Educators typically present drugs - including
alcohol and cigarettes - as a monolith, overlooking differences that
teenagers realize themselves through direct experience, leading to a
traumatic moment of "cognitive dissonance," he said.

If adults were more nuanced in their presentation, students would find it
easier to rely on their advice, he said. A better presentation of
marijuana, for instance, would mention both good and bad effects while not
condoning its use, he said. "There's a big distance between `just say no'
and `just say yes.' "

And officials in some regions are coming to the same conclusion. When
Burlington Police Chief Elana Ellis announced that she would discontinue
the program in May, the Vermont city joined Omaha, Houston, and Seattle in
the quest for a new approach. In Massachusetts, Lexington, Bedford,
Lawrence, Lunenburg, and Harvard have also dropped the program - a trend
that concerns Foley.

"It does worry me, because I'm not sure what the alternative programs are,"
said Foley.