Pubdate: Fri, 16 Nov 2001
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education, The (US)
Copyright: 2001 by The Chronicle of Higher Education
Contact:  http://chronicle.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/84
Author: Gilbert J. Botvin, Director Institute for Prevention Research 
Professor of Public Health and Psychiatry Weill Medical College Cornell 
University New York

EDUCATION TO KEEP KIDS FROM USING DRUGS

To the Editor:

In "DARE Reinvents Itself -- With Help From Its Social-Scientist Critics" 
(October 19), the reporter aptly chronicles the effort by DARE (which 
stands for Drug Abuse Resistance Education) to overhaul its much-criticized 
middle-school curriculum and notes that DARE might have saved itself years 
of uncertainty, and criticism, if it had merely adopted a proven 
alternative program, such as Life Skills Training or Project ALERT.

While it's true that Life Skills Training has had tremendous success in 
reducing smoking, drinking, and marijuana use among teens, the reporter 
mistakenly characterizes it as a social-influence program. While the 
program contains some social-influence elements, it is a comprehensive, 
school-based prevention program. It addresses a wider range of risk and 
protective factors through a developmental approach that emphasizes the 
teaching of personal and social skills. It is precisely the 
comprehensiveness of the program that has made it so effective.

The social-influence approach, on the other hand, ... assumes that most 
kids don't want to use drugs and simply need to be taught refusal skills. 
Unfortunately, prevention programs based on the social-influence approach 
do little to address either the underlying motivations to use drugs or 
individual vulnerability to pro-drug pressures. ...

Unless the new DARE goes beyond the narrow confines of the social-influence 
approach, it is unlikely that it will be any more effective than DARE's 
current program.

Gilbert J. Botvin Director Institute for Prevention Research Professor of 
Public Health and Psychiatry Weill Medical College Cornell University New York
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom