IS DARE'S MESSAGE TO KIDS OUT OF STEP?

In Miami, spring of 1999, thousands of grade-school kids packed the Orange
Bowl to get their official drug-free certificates from Gov. Jeb Bush.

The president's brother grinned his approval as the Florida Highway Patrol
put on a show for the children. They rolled an armoured personnel carrier
onto the field, from which a dozen tactical squad cops emerged to stage a
mock "shootout" with mock "drug dealers."

After they "killed" the "pushers," the kids (being kids) roared happily.

They could hardly call it a War on Drugs if it didn't include at least one
tank, could they? The Miami event was a graduation ceremony for the Drug
Abuse Resistance Education program - DARE, for short.

Tomorrow, the program marks its 20th year in elementary schools on both
sides of the border: the most widespread school anti-drug program in North
America, and the most controversial.

"All the scientifically credible, peer-review studies I've seen said they
could find no evidence the DARE program had any effect at all on teenagers'
use of alcohol and illicit drugs," said Rod Skager, professor emeritus of
psychological studies in education at the University of California.

Skager has been involved in an annual survey by the state Attorney General's
Office on teen drug use since 1985. He represents a growing consensus among
North American academics on addictions prevention: the "just say no"
philosophy embodied by DARE isn't working.

As of 1999, more than a dozen studies in the U.S. concluded that the
$230-million international DARE program had no impact on teen drug use.

Launched by the L.A. cops in 1983, DARE puts police officers in Grade 6
classrooms to warn kids off tobacco, alcohol and illegal drugs. The program
leans heavily on promoting children's self-esteem as a barrier against peer
pressure.

DARE also endorses the "gateway" theory of addiction, which holds that the
milder illicit drugs - like marijuana - lead directly to experimentation
with, and addiction to, hard drugs like crack cocaine and heroin. The fact
that the gateway theory has been debunked by numberless scientific studies
doesn't seem to trouble Sgt. John Stokker much.

"It has been discredited by some studies, validated by others," said
Stokker, who co-ordinates the DARE program for the Edmonton city police.

The program is offered in 75 Edmonton schools now, and Stokker said there's
a waiting list at least that long of schools trying to get their own DARE
program.

Stokker doesn't have a cost estimate for DARE in Edmonton: officers usually
teach the classes during working hours, so it all ends up on the city's
payroll tab.

"It's more of a life-skills course than an (anti-drug program)," he said.
"We're talking to kids about peer pressure, self-esteem, gang violence. We
find that kids 11 and 12 years old are still very receptive to a message."

But it's the message that needs tweaking, according to DARE's critics. Dr.
Marsha Rosenbaum is a PhD in medical sociology who works with the
California-based Drug Policy Alliance, a lobby group trying to get the U.S.
to replace its zero-tolerance policy with a more realistic harm-reduction
model.

Rosenbaum said the problem with DARE's gateway argument is that it assumes
teenagers are dumber than they look.

"Adolescents can see the inherent contradictions, the fact that some
mind-altering drugs are legal and some aren't," she said. "They know other
kids who used marijuana and didn't end up on heroin or cocaine.

"So there's this huge credibility gap there, and they begin to doubt the
whole abstinence message."

Add to that the fact that both Canada and the United States are fast
becoming pharmaceutical cultures. Every kid knows someone on Ritalin or an
anti-depressant, said Rosenbaum: teens see the irony in preaching abstinence
when pharma firms plug psychoactive drugs for everything from excess anxiety
to shyness.

"Drug education should be threaded through the whole curriculum, courses
like chemistry and biology. And it should stick to the facts, to what these
drugs actually do and what the real harm can be," said Rosenbaum.

Food for thought: according to a survey run out of the U of A in 2001, more
than half of Alberta kids aged 16-18 had tried marijuana by the end of high
school.

If DARE's gateway theory is correct, they're all headed for crack addiction.
Maybe the police need to buy a tank.