Pubdate: Thu, 06 Sep 2001
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2001 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: Lenny Savino
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/dare.htm (D.A.R.E.)

SCHOOL ANTI-DRUG PROGRAMS FAULTED

WASHINGTON - Sixty-one percent of U.S. high-school-age teens and 40 percent 
of middle-school-age kids say drugs are used, kept and sold in their 
schools, according to a survey released Wednesday by the National Center on 
Addiction and Substance Abuse.

The center, a nonprofit institute associated with Columbia University in 
New York, also says that neither of the two most popular American systems 
for controlling drug abuse by school-age children works very well. The most 
popular, Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE), shows "little evidence ... 
of any extended impact," the center concluded. Another frequently used 
approach, based on harsh penalties for even minor drug abuse, often 
discourages students from turning in substance abusers.

In Colorado, DARE reaches some 150,000 students in 1,000 public and 
parochial schools throughout the state, but that number is dwindling. In 
1999, the Boulder school district dropped DARE from its curriculum. Still, 
Coloradans seem to support the program. In January 2000, DARE raised more 
than $250,000 at the Starfish Ball fundraising dinner. The center calls its 
report the "first comprehensive analysis of all available data on substance 
use in our schools and among our students."

The center, headed by Joseph Califano, who was secretary of health, 
education and welfare under President Carter, acknowledges that the amount 
of reported drug use among teens nationwide generally has stayed the same 
or declined in recent years; except for some new drugs such as Ecstasy. But 
Califano said drug abuse would decline more sharply if parents stopped 
leaving the problem to school-sponsored programs such as DARE and involved 
themselves more deeply.

The center's survey, "Malignant Neglect: Substance Abuse and America's 
Schools," is based on 10,000 random telephone interviews nationwide with 
parents, teachers and students, coupled with reviews of outside research on 
the effectiveness of conventional drug abuse-education programs.

"Drug Free School Zone" laws are prominent among those antiabuse efforts. 
Many state legislatures passed such laws in the 1980s, which make 
punishment extra severe for drug dealing within 1,000 feet of a school. 
Their effectiveness is "not clear," the center's report concluded. It cites 
a Boston University School of Public Health study of three Massachusetts 
cities that found that 80 percent of drug cases occurred inside drug-free 
school zones, although most occurred after school hours.

Zero-tolerance policies in schools, which require stiff penalties even for 
minor drug offenses, don't work well either, the center found. The tough 
penalties discourage students from turning in their drug-abusing peers. 
Those expelled for drug abuse often wind up on the streets or in 
alternative schools where drugs are plentiful.

The most widely employed antiabuse initiative is DARE, which is taught by 
local police officers, generally to fourth-graders through junior high 
students. About 80 percent of the schools in the country use DARE, the 
organization says.

Denver's Lake Middle School is one of 18 national sites testing a promising 
alternative to DARE called CASASTART. While DARE focuses on sending a broad 
antidrug message to an entire student body, CASASTART workers focus on 
individual students. The goal is to find out what problems confront a 
student and then try to eliminate them - whether that means getting a crack 
house off the block, tutoring, or drug rehab for a parent.
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