DARE'S SCARE TACTICS DO MORE HARM THAN GOOD

As noted in your thoughtful April 21 editorial, the Drug Abuse
Resistance Education program "has come in for increasing criticism in
recent years, and may have run its course as a social movement."

DARE's good intentions are no substitute for effective drug
education. Every independent, methodologically sound evaluation of
DARE has found the program either ineffective or counterproductive.
The scare tactics used do more harm than good. Students who realize
they are being lied to about marijuana often make the mistake of
assuming harder drugs are relatively harmless as well - a recipe for
disaster.

Drug education programs must be reality-based or they may backfire
when kids are inevitably exposed to drug use among their peers.

The importance of parental involvement in reducing adolescent drug
use cannot be overstated. School-based extracurricular activities
also have been shown to reduce drug use by keeping kids busy during
the hours they're most prone to getting into trouble.

The most popular recreational drug, the one most often associated
with violent behavior, is often overlooked in drug education. That
drug is alcohol, and it takes far more lives every year than all
illegal drugs combined. Alcohol may be legal, but it's still the No.
1 drug problem.

Robert Sharpe Program officer, Drug Policy Alliance Washington, D.C.