It's hard to believe Drug Abuse Resistance Education turned 20-years-old last week. I remember the hoopla that took place surrounding the birth of the program when Daryl Gates, then Los Angeles chief of police, and the Los Angeles Unified School District officials came together with the concept that was to save teen-agers from the ravages of illicit drugs.
DARE's message and purpose was simple: Keep kids off of drugs, educate them, and help them have the courage to dare to say no to anyone attempting to draw them on to the dark side.
Who can forget such vivid television images as the thin young woman with the frying pan and egg, cracking the egg and dropping its contents into the hot pan and declaring, "this is your brain on drugs," as the egg sizzled into oblivion. I've always wondered if that scare tactic worked. Apparently not.
A few facts: In 2000, 47 percent of eighth-graders and 88.5 percent of senior high school students said marijuana was easy to obtain, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Approximately 24 percent of eighth-graders and upward of 48 percent of seniors reported powdered cocaine was easy to get.
There's more, according to a fact sheet compiled in April 2003, by Ariel Kalishman of the Drug Policy Alliance:
Porterville's teen-agers are just as subject to the above statistics as the rest of the nation's young people, if not more so because of the high incidence of methamphetamine being produced and sold in our area. A case in point is the law enforcement drug raid early this month, which resulted in arrests at 18 locations including homes in Porterville, Bakersfield, Terra Bella and the Tule River Indian Reservation.
During a telephone conversation last week, Marsha Rosenbaum, director of Safety First/Drug Policy Alliance, told me that, if nothing else, every scientific evaluation of the DARE program has proven its ineffectiveness. During this time of severe budget cuts in education, spending billions of dollars on a failed drug program is ludicrous.
Without a doubt, even a small portion of $1 - $1.3 billion could be better spent educating parents on how better to help their children in this area and making sure teachers have jobs.
link 1
site
9-19-03
DARE's message and purpose was simple: Keep kids off of drugs, educate them, and help them have the courage to dare to say no to anyone attempting to draw them on to the dark side.
Who can forget such vivid television images as the thin young woman with the frying pan and egg, cracking the egg and dropping its contents into the hot pan and declaring, "this is your brain on drugs," as the egg sizzled into oblivion. I've always wondered if that scare tactic worked. Apparently not.
A few facts: In 2000, 47 percent of eighth-graders and 88.5 percent of senior high school students said marijuana was easy to obtain, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Approximately 24 percent of eighth-graders and upward of 48 percent of seniors reported powdered cocaine was easy to get.
There's more, according to a fact sheet compiled in April 2003, by Ariel Kalishman of the Drug Policy Alliance:
- Studies have consistently shown that DARE has no significant effect on student drug use.
- Estimated costs of DARE annually is $1 to 1.3 billion.
- The Department of Education prohibited schools from spending its Safe and Drug-Free Schools money on DARE because they did not consider it effective in reducing drug use. Parent organization DARE America continues to receive money because it's trying to update the curriculum.
- National surveys report that more than 50 percent of American teen-agers said they experimented with an illegal drug before completing high school; 80 percent owned up to drinking alcohol during those impressionable years.
Porterville's teen-agers are just as subject to the above statistics as the rest of the nation's young people, if not more so because of the high incidence of methamphetamine being produced and sold in our area. A case in point is the law enforcement drug raid early this month, which resulted in arrests at 18 locations including homes in Porterville, Bakersfield, Terra Bella and the Tule River Indian Reservation.
During a telephone conversation last week, Marsha Rosenbaum, director of Safety First/Drug Policy Alliance, told me that, if nothing else, every scientific evaluation of the DARE program has proven its ineffectiveness. During this time of severe budget cuts in education, spending billions of dollars on a failed drug program is ludicrous.
Without a doubt, even a small portion of $1 - $1.3 billion could be better spent educating parents on how better to help their children in this area and making sure teachers have jobs.
link 1
site
9-19-03
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
