Pubdate: Mon, 26 Feb 2001
Source: Quad-City Times (IA)
Copyright: 2001 Quad-City Times
Section: Opinion, Page A4, Viewpoints
Contact:  500 E. Third St., Davenport, IA  52801
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Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/dare.htm (D.A.R.E.)
Note: Originally published in The Deseret News, Salt Lake City, Utah

DARE NEEDED TO ADMIT ITS FLAWS

After months of criticism, here and elsewhere, the people who head the DARE 
program nationwide have admitted their program is a failure. Last week, 
officials of the program, whose acronym stands for Drug Abuse Resistance 
Education, said they are coming up with a revamped program - one they have 
been working on for two years.

This raises several questions, not the least of which is why DARE's leaders 
strongly defended it against recent criticisms when they apparently knew at 
least some of the complaints were true.  For two years they have been 
working quietly on changes based on evidence that DARE wasn't working, yet 
they were happy to continue accepting taxpayer money from school 
districts.  Not only that, they often impugned the motives of their 
critics, attacking them as hiding an agenda to legalize drugs.

Recently studies by the National Academy of Sciences and the surgeon 
general have shown the program to be flawed. Not the program's critics, 
including Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson, who last year withdrew support 
from DARE in the Salt Lake School District, have gained a good measure of 
credibility.

- - - The Deseret News, Salt Lake City 
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MAP posted-by: GD