NO EVIDENCE SHOWS DARE EFFECTIVENESS

Can Nancy Le (Letter Box, June 14) or any other DARE supporter produce
any actual research that shows DARE reduces drug use in kids? No? I
didn't think so. I have asked before, and nobody has come up with any
yet.

There are other drug education programs that really do work, there is
a way to measure whether they work, and there is research to prove
they work, so they get federal government funding. DARE does not get
federal government funding because there is no evidence that it works.
The research shows that, by the senior year in high school, up to 95
percent of students regard DARE as having no credibility at all. Some
research has even shown that DARE students may be more likely to use
drugs than their non-DARE peers.

It is a real sin to waste precious time and money on DARE when there
isn't a shred of evidence that it works.

CLIFFORD SCHAFFER

Canyon Country, Calif.

The writer is director of the DRCNet Online Library of Drug Policy
(http://www.druglibrary.org).