DARE FAILS TO REDUCE DRUG USE

Re: DARE to Say No, February 21

Valley Voice:

"For too long, drug-prevention policies have been driven by mindless
adherence to a wasteful, ineffective, feel-good program. DARE [Drug Abuse
Resistance Education] has been a huge public-relations success but a
failure at accomplishing the goal of long-term drug-abuse prevention." -
Mayor Rocky Anderson, Salt Lake City, Utah.

The [American] federal Bureau of Justice Assistance paid $300,000 to the
Research Triangle Institute (RTI), a North Carolina research firm, to
analyze DARE's effectiveness. The RTI study found that DARE failed to
significantly reduce drug use. Researchers warned that "DARE could be
taking the place of other, more beneficial drug-use curricula."

Dennis Rosenbaum, professor of criminal justice studies at the University
of Illinois at Chicago, surveyed and tracked 1,800 kids who had DARE
training and concluded in 1998 that "suburban students who participated in
DARE reported significantly higher rates of drug use...than suburban
students who did not participate in the program."

Larry Seguin

Lisbon, NY, USA