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 teenagers 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