Pubdate: Mon, 01 Jan 2001 Source: Houston Chronicle (TX) Copyright: 2001 Houston Chronicle Contact: Viewpoints Editor, P.O. Box 4260 Houston, Texas 77210-4260 Fax: (713) 220-3575 Website: http://www.chron.com/ Forum: http://www.chron.com/content/hcitalk/index.html Author: G. Alan Robison Cited: Drug Policy Forum of Texas http://www.dpft.org/ Note: Dr. Robison is executive director Drug Policy Forum of Texas Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1947/a02.html KEEPING DRUGS FROM KIDS I was irritated by the pessimistic Dec. 20 Chronicle article, "Kids deaf to anti-smoking message; School programs found effective," which was about the failure of a study at Washington state to teach kids about the evils of smoking. It turned out that the study had no more effect on stopping kids from smoking than the DARE program has in preventing kids from trying illegal drugs. And speaking of irritations, the DARE program costs Houston taxpayers several million dollars per year. The Washington state experiment that failed was probably sponsored and dreamed up by government bureaucrats. And even if it brought in some psychologists and other experts to help, I doubt that any of them ever smoked or even thought about smoking. The DARE program was thought up by Daryl Gates -- then Los Angeles police chief -- who thought the best solution to the drug problem would be to line up all abusers of illegal drugs and shoot them. Another reason I was so irritated by the article was that I know there are several states with excellent anti-smoking campaigns that actually work. How I wish for a rational drug policy in America, so that instead of having to spend all of our time trying to keep nonviolent drug offenders out of prison, we could devote at least part of our time to thinking of better ways to keep kids from fooling around with dangerous and addictive drugs in the first place. But enough with the dreaming. G. Alan Robison executive director Drug Policy Forum of Texas Houston - --- MAP posted-by: Thunder