BEYOND THE BLACKBOARD: DARE'S FAILURE

It's hard to believe Drug Abuse Resistance Education turned
20-years-old last week. I remember the hoopla that took place
surrounding the birth of the program when Daryl Gates, then Los
Angeles chief of police, and the Los Angeles Unified School District
officials came together with the concept that was to save teen-agers
from the ravages of illicit drugs.

DARE's message and purpose was simple: Keep kids off of drugs, educate
them, and help them have the courage to dare to say no to anyone
attempting to draw them on to the dark side.

Who can forget such vivid television images as the thin young woman
with the frying pan and egg, cracking the egg and dropping its
contents into the hot pan and declaring, "this is your brain on
drugs," as the egg sizzled into oblivion. I've always wondered if that
scare tactic worked. Apparently not.

A few facts: In 2000, 47 percent of eighth-graders and 88.5 percent of
senior high school students said marijuana was easy to obtain,
according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration. Approximately 24 percent of eighth-graders and upward
of 48 percent of seniors reported powdered cocaine was easy to get.

There's more, according to a fact sheet compiled in April 2003, by
Ariel Kalishman of the Drug Policy Alliance:

- - Studies have consistently shown that DARE has no significant effect on
student drug use.

- - Estimated costs of DARE annually is $1 to 1.3 billion.

- - The Department of Education prohibited schools from spending its Safe
and Drug-Free Schools money on DARE because they did not consider it
effective in reducing drug use. Parent organization DARE America
continues to receive money because it's trying to update the curriculum.

- - National surveys report that more than 50 percent of American
teen-agers said they experimented with an illegal drug before
completing high school; 80 percent owned up to drinking alcohol during
those impressionable years.

Porterville's teen-agers are just as subject to the above statistics
as the rest of the nation's young people, if not more so because of
the high incidence of methamphetamine being produced and sold in our
area. A case in point is the law enforcement drug raid early this
month, which resulted in arrests at 18 locations including homes in
Porterville, Bakersfield, Terra Bella and the Tule River Indian
Reservation.

During a telephone conversation last week, Marsha Rosenbaum, director
of Safety First/Drug Policy Alliance, told me that, if nothing else,
every scientific evaluation of the DARE program has proven its
ineffectiveness. During this time of severe budget cuts in education,
spending billions of dollars on a failed drug program is ludicrous.

Without a doubt, even a small portion of $1 - $1.3 billion could be
better spent educating parents on how better to help their children in
this area and making sure teachers have jobs.

For more information on DARE visit http://www.drugpolicy.org