PARENTS VITAL IN DRUG LESSONS

The national war on drugs was dealt an embarrassing defeat on the home
front today, as the Partnership for a Drug Free America released a report
showing that nearly half of parents would be unconcerned to learn their
children has used marijuana.

While D.A.R.E. and other well-funded programs bombard elementary and middle
school children with dishonest propaganda and scare tactics, the government
has completely glanced over the true school of social education: the
American home. Parents serve as the first and most influential behavior
model for children and they should take a deliberate role in teaching their
children about drugs - using their own experience as a model.

The federal government and its various agencies have practiced an
aggressive zero-tolerance approach toward drugs since the early 1980s. As
"graduates" of the D.A.R.E. program, most Boston University students can
attest that this approach involves exaggerated accounts of illicit drug
uses and down-right lies on their effects and addictiveness. The result is
counterproductive: teenagers who eventually experiment with mild drugs
realize they have been lied to and automatically discount their entire
substance education, including good information about truly dangerous drugs.

D.A.R.E. also introduces kids to drugs for the first time at the elementary
school level with videos and lessons that essentially say "this is what big
kids do." In essence, American drug education has been effectively
"selling" the idea of drug use to children for two decades.

Many American parents, having grown up during the 1960s, 70s and 80s, have
the first-hand experiences necessary to teach children a realistic,
moderate approach to drugs.

Much of the attraction of substance use for teens is the allure of breaking
the rules, rebelling against what is taught in school and creating a secret
life outside their parent's control. When parents sit down and honestly
discuss the effects of drugs and encourage their children to be cautious
and moderate when faced with them, they deflate that appeal and extinguish
its novelty.

Parents can also set guidelines and explain the true risks of drugs.

The flexibility of an honest education equips teenagers with knowledge they
can actually apply to the reality of drug use - something the rigid and
heavy-handed teaching of D.A.R.E. have failed to do. Parents, with their
experience and honesty, have a chance to succeed where two decades of drug
education has failed.

Programs like D.A.R.E., which garner millions of dollars in federal
funding, have consistently failed to make a dent in the American "drug
problem." Now it turns out that this is partly because they receive little
support from behind.

Education starts in the home, and the federal government will never be able
to instill values in children like parents can. Instead of bombarding
children with a lesson plan parents know to be bogus, the government should
encourage parents to retake their children's social education.

Parent's should share their life experience and its lessons with their
children and advocate a safe approach to drug use. The war on drugs cannot
be won in the classroom alone.