D.A.R.E.: THE NEVER-ENDING FOLLY
Published~ in the "Orange County Register" "Opinion/Editorial" pages
April 14, 2005
By "A Mother of Four"
Good Intentions Don't Make Up For Fact that the D.A.R.E. Program Doesn't Work and Never Has
Politics trumped science once again with President Bush's official proclamation that today is "National D.A.R.E. Day."
The President declared, "Across America, law enforcement officers, volunteers, parents and teachers are helping to send the right message to our nation's youth about illegal drugs and violence through the Drug Abuse Resistance Education ( D.A.R.E. ) Program."
Yet despite 22 years of drug-free pledges, T-shirts and bumper stickers, and plenty of abstinence-only rhetoric, the brainchild of Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates does not seem to be getting the "right message" across to the D.A.R.E. generation, many of whom are saying maybe or sometimes or even yes to alcohol and other drugs.
As in years past, the 2004 Monitoring the Future ( www.monitoringthefuture. org ) survey of high school students' alcohol and other drug use revealed that three-quarters admitted to using alcohol prior to graduation and half had tried illegal drugs.
Dismissal of "just say no" is so widespread that even the Bush twins were caught imbibing before they were of legal drinking age - by the authorities, not their parents.
One has to wonder whether the president does his homework before issuing proclamations. Evaluations over the past decade have consistently found, as the General Accounting Office noted after assessing the research, that "D.A.R.E. had no statistically significant long-term effect on preventing youth illicit drug use." To add to the ever-growing chorus, the surgeon general, the National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. and California Departments of Education, the American Federation of Teachers and the California School Boards Association have all concluded D.A.R.E. to be ineffective.
By officially praising D.A.R.E., the president not only demonstrates a fundamental disregard for science, but also contradicts his own education policy.
The No Child Left Behind Act recommends only programs approved by the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention.
D.A.R.E. is glaringly absent from that prized list of "evidence-based" drug education programs. Nevertheless, while Los Angeles and New York City finally gave D.A.RE. the axe last year, the program is still used in 251 districts in California.
Sacrificing sound programs in favor of doctrine - a palpable disservice to teens - is also apparent with the parallel issue of sexuality education. The House of Representatives' Committee on Government Reform found that federally funded, abstinence-only sex education programs, which now dominate the terrain, deliver distorted and inaccurate information about contraception and sexually transmitted diseases.
Just this month, authors of a joint Yale/Columbia University research study reported on the impact of teenage virginity pledges pushed by the "True Love Waits" movement. In the Journal of Adolescent Health, sociologists Hannah Bruckner and Peter Bearman documented that the majority of pledgers ultimately had sex before marriage; were less likely to use condoms than their nonpledging counterparts; and that those who considered themselves virgins were "more likely to substitute oral and/or anal sex for vaginal sex."
The ultimate bit of bad news: There was no difference in rates of sexually transmitted disease in pledgers and nonpledgers. The authors' conclusion:
"The all-or-nothing approach advocated by many abstinence-only programs may create additional barriers to knowledge and protection for adolescents."
We hear lots of rhetoric these days about family values and safety. As the mother of four, I share other parents' concerns about the worrisome issues of sex and drugs. Abstinence, of course, would be ideal for teenagers. But in the end, we have no choice but to accept the reality that young people make their own decisions, which are not always consistent with our preferences.
When policy-makers advocate rigid, abstinence-only drug and sex education programs of questionable value, to the exclusion of safety-oriented approaches that dare to provide an honest, comprehensive fallback strategy, they put our young people in real jeopardy.
If sex and drug prevention programs prohibit the discussion of practical information about how to take precautions if one is not abstinent, they are neither education nor protection.
http://www.mapinc.org/newssf/v05/n612/a10.html?56328
......................................................................................................
To improve outreach to parents, the Drug Policy Alliance created the Safety First project.
Safety First:
A Reality-Based Approach to Teens, Drugs, and Drug Education
&
Beyond Zero Tolerance:
A Reality-Based Approach to Drug Education and Student Assistance
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=17435
Published~ in the "Orange County Register" "Opinion/Editorial" pages
April 14, 2005
By "A Mother of Four"
Good Intentions Don't Make Up For Fact that the D.A.R.E. Program Doesn't Work and Never Has
Politics trumped science once again with President Bush's official proclamation that today is "National D.A.R.E. Day."
The President declared, "Across America, law enforcement officers, volunteers, parents and teachers are helping to send the right message to our nation's youth about illegal drugs and violence through the Drug Abuse Resistance Education ( D.A.R.E. ) Program."
Yet despite 22 years of drug-free pledges, T-shirts and bumper stickers, and plenty of abstinence-only rhetoric, the brainchild of Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates does not seem to be getting the "right message" across to the D.A.R.E. generation, many of whom are saying maybe or sometimes or even yes to alcohol and other drugs.
As in years past, the 2004 Monitoring the Future ( www.monitoringthefuture. org ) survey of high school students' alcohol and other drug use revealed that three-quarters admitted to using alcohol prior to graduation and half had tried illegal drugs.
Dismissal of "just say no" is so widespread that even the Bush twins were caught imbibing before they were of legal drinking age - by the authorities, not their parents.
One has to wonder whether the president does his homework before issuing proclamations. Evaluations over the past decade have consistently found, as the General Accounting Office noted after assessing the research, that "D.A.R.E. had no statistically significant long-term effect on preventing youth illicit drug use." To add to the ever-growing chorus, the surgeon general, the National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. and California Departments of Education, the American Federation of Teachers and the California School Boards Association have all concluded D.A.R.E. to be ineffective.
By officially praising D.A.R.E., the president not only demonstrates a fundamental disregard for science, but also contradicts his own education policy.
The No Child Left Behind Act recommends only programs approved by the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention.
D.A.R.E. is glaringly absent from that prized list of "evidence-based" drug education programs. Nevertheless, while Los Angeles and New York City finally gave D.A.RE. the axe last year, the program is still used in 251 districts in California.
Sacrificing sound programs in favor of doctrine - a palpable disservice to teens - is also apparent with the parallel issue of sexuality education. The House of Representatives' Committee on Government Reform found that federally funded, abstinence-only sex education programs, which now dominate the terrain, deliver distorted and inaccurate information about contraception and sexually transmitted diseases.
Just this month, authors of a joint Yale/Columbia University research study reported on the impact of teenage virginity pledges pushed by the "True Love Waits" movement. In the Journal of Adolescent Health, sociologists Hannah Bruckner and Peter Bearman documented that the majority of pledgers ultimately had sex before marriage; were less likely to use condoms than their nonpledging counterparts; and that those who considered themselves virgins were "more likely to substitute oral and/or anal sex for vaginal sex."
The ultimate bit of bad news: There was no difference in rates of sexually transmitted disease in pledgers and nonpledgers. The authors' conclusion:
"The all-or-nothing approach advocated by many abstinence-only programs may create additional barriers to knowledge and protection for adolescents."
We hear lots of rhetoric these days about family values and safety. As the mother of four, I share other parents' concerns about the worrisome issues of sex and drugs. Abstinence, of course, would be ideal for teenagers. But in the end, we have no choice but to accept the reality that young people make their own decisions, which are not always consistent with our preferences.
When policy-makers advocate rigid, abstinence-only drug and sex education programs of questionable value, to the exclusion of safety-oriented approaches that dare to provide an honest, comprehensive fallback strategy, they put our young people in real jeopardy.
If sex and drug prevention programs prohibit the discussion of practical information about how to take precautions if one is not abstinent, they are neither education nor protection.
http://www.mapinc.org/newssf/v05/n612/a10.html?56328
......................................................................................................
To improve outreach to parents, the Drug Policy Alliance created the Safety First project.
Safety First:
A Reality-Based Approach to Teens, Drugs, and Drug Education
&
Beyond Zero Tolerance:
A Reality-Based Approach to Drug Education and Student Assistance
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=17435
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