DARE Program Is A Problem, Not Part of Any Solution

[ap...@wallnet.com]

Ellett E-Liberty No. 6

DARE Program Is A Problem, Not Part of Any Solution

Emerson Ellett, the Libertarian Psrty candidate for US Senate,
today issued the following statement about the DARE anti-drug use
program which is widely popular in government schools:

"DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) is a Federal program directed at
fifth and sixth graders. It is presented in the classroom by uniformed
police officers. Teachers and parents are not allowed to participate,
and are denied access to the curriculum materials. The students are
given workbooks to complete but are not allowed to take them home. An
article published in USA Today Oct. 11, 1993 quotes Gilbert Botvin,
Institute for Prevention, Cornell University Medical Center: "it's well
established that DARE doesn't work."

A New Jersey father told me recently that he was concerned that a "DARE
box" had been placed in his son's classroom for students to drop
messages in if they want to "tell the officer something."

This practice has been going on since 1983. Several years ago an
eleven-year-old girl confided to her DARE officer that her parents were
growing a small amount of marijuana in their house. They were arrested
and she has since become withdrawn. Formerly an honor student her
grades fell to Cs and she "gets scared" when police drive by her house
wondering "if something else is going to happen." (Wall St. Journal,
April 20, 1992)

The Constitution makes no mention of education, which, I believe, is a
local matter. As a US senator I would vote to eliminate federal funding
of the DARE program."

Emerson Ellett
Libertarian candidate for United States Senate

Anyone interested in knowing more about the effectiveness of the DARE
program can read more at http:///www.Ellett2000.org/dare.html

Please pass this E-mail on to others who would be interested in Ellett's
stand. To learn more about the Ellett campaign visit the website
http://www.Ellett2000.org.

[Stanley J. Broskey, Ph.D.]

DARE is a cash cow for NJ police departments... with very little success.
drsjb
forensic scientist

<ap...@wallnet.com> wrote in message news:38EB03...@wallnet.com...

[Sancho Panza]

Of course it's a major infringement. But children at that age HAVE to be
educated some way. Do the authorities give any plausible reason why they
restrict the curriculum materials?

[jigo]

DARE is a typical bungled, wasteful government program that DOES NOT
work. There is no evidence that it works, and DARE officials tried to
suppress publication of the independent studies (cited below) that showed
that it did not work. As a previous poster pointed out, it’s mainly a
cash cow for police departments and the other worthless bureaucrats who
run the program.

"The massively funded DARE program has been a thundering bust. That was
the conclusion of a review of 120 separate studies of DARE paid for by
the Department of Justice in 1994 but never published. In California, a
comprehensive study commissioned by the state Department of Education
also was suppressed because it came to the same conclusion: Ideological
rigidity and effective education do not mix."
--Robert Scheer. In: _The War on Drugs: Opposing Viewpoints_. Thompson
SP, ed. San Diego, Greenhaven Press, 1998.

[Reason magazine] (1 of 2; see end of file)
DRUG PREVENTION PLACEBO

How DARE wastes time, money, and police
By Jeff Elliott

...running DARE takes a lot of money. A DARE spokesperson claims the
program costs somewhat less than $200 million annually, but other
credible estimates range as high as $700 million, once all costs are
considered.

...But unfortunately for DARE boosters, the study also proved something
else: DARE doesn't have a measurable effect on drug abuse. While the
flyer devoted ample space to puffery, it dismissed the critical heart of
the study in just two terse sentences. And it did not mention that NIJ
[National Institute of Justice] had refused to publish the study, despite
positive peer review.

....by 1991, there were more than a dozen studies that claimed DARE
didn't work at all....All these studies said the same thing about drug
use--if DARE had any effect at all, it was short lived.

These comments also typify DARE America's response to criticism. A 1993
Gallup poll of recent DARE graduates is frequently cited by Levant to
demonstrate the program's worth, as is a survey of enthusiastic school
administrators. But surveys and anecdotes are far different from rigorous
scientific evaluation. If these same policemen obtained evidence of a
crime, would they want professional technicians to analyze it or would
they ask Gallup to quiz the public?

----------------------------------------------------------

[Stanley J. Broskey, Ph.D.]

DARE has been a very unsuccessful program that turned out to be a CASH COW
for police.
drsjb

"jigo" <ji...@erols.com> wrote in message news:3900DC...@erols.com...

[jdgr...@my-deja.com]

In article <uw$VeJ7r$GA.305@cpmsnbbsa04>,

I ran across these other reports that said the same thing--DARE does not
work at all:
Kentucky study - National Institute on Drug Abuse - "No
statistically significant differences"
Canadian Government study: "DARE had no significant effect on
the use of...marijuana, acid, heroin, crack, glue, and PCP."
Research Triangle Institute - National Institute of Justice:
DARE has "a limited to essentially non-existent effect" on drug use.
The largest evaluation of the DARE program concluded that the
Anti-Drug program does not reduce drug use, and IN AT LEAST THE CATEGORY
OF POT, THE DARE GRADUATES SMOKED MORE FREQUENTLY THAN THE CONTROLS. The
report concluded: "The DARE program's limited effect on adolescent drug
use contrasts with the program's popularity and prevalence. An important
implication is that DARE could be taking the place of other, more
beneficial drug education programs that kids could be receiving."--How
Effective is DARE, American Journal of Public Health, Sept 1994, p1399.

Among the notable quotations from researchers:
"It is well established that DARE doesn't work."--Gilbert Botvin,
Cornell Medical Center
"Research shows that, no, DARE hasn't been effective in reducing drug
use."--William Modzeleski, Top Drug education official at the Department
of Education.
"I think the program should be entirely scrapped and redeveloped
anew."--Dr. William Hansen, who helped design the original DARE program

DARE strikes me as a typical worthless government program --A huge
bureaucracy develops around some program, so a lot of people have a
financial stake in keeping it going, no matter how useless it is. But
this is pretty similar to the war on drugs as a whole: We would be a
lot better off if we just legalized and regulated drugs the way we do
alcohol and tobacco, but several huge government agencies, spending tens
of billions of dollars a year, are now supported by it.

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