Pubdate: Tue, 12 Apr 2005
Source: AlterNet (US Web)
Copyright: 2005 Independent Media Institute
Contact:  http://www.alternet.org/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1451
Author: Marsha Rosenbaum, AlterNet
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/dare.htm (D.A.R.E.)

SEX, DRUGS AND DOCTRINE

Politics trumped science once again today as the President officially 
proclaimed April 14, 2005 "National D.A.R.E. Day." Heaping praises on the 
Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, Bush said, "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, bumper stickers and 
plenty of abstinence-only rhetoric, the program does not seem to be getting 
the "right message" across to the D.A.R.E. generation, many of whom are 
saying "maybe," "sometimes," or even "yes" to alcohol and other drugs.

As in years past, the 2004 Monitoring the Future 
(http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/ survey of drug and alcohol use by high 
school students 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.

Perhaps teens are cynical about the simplistic "drugs are bad, don't use 
them" messages they have received since early childhood. Or maybe they 
don't find police officers, however well-meaning, a credible source of 
information. Whatever the reasons, the "feel-good" D.A.R.E. program has 
proven to be little more than that for everyone involved, except students 
themselves.

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 of critics, the Surgeon General, 
the National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. Department of Education and the 
American Federation of Teachers have deemed D.A.R.E. ineffective. And 
although D.A.R.E. has tried to re-invent itself of late, preliminary 
evaluations are faring no better than those of the original, which is the 
program still currently used in a majority of school districts in America.

By officially praising D.A.R.E., Bush 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.

While the Bush administration continues to tout an ineffective program, a 
growing number of big cities are refusing to go along. Most notably, Los 
Angeles, birthplace of the program, gave D.A.R.E. the ax last year. And 
after receiving a scathing report from the Independent Budget Office, New 
York City abandoned D.A.R.E. last year, citing ineffectiveness as well as a 
savings of $2.5 million to the city.

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, chaired by Rep. 
Henry Waxman, has been looking at federally funded, abstinence-only sex 
education programs, which now dominate the terrain, and found that such 
programs 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 prestigious Journal of Adolescent Health, 
sociologists Hannah Bruckner and Peter Bearman revealed that the majority 
of pledgers ultimately had sex before marriage. Pledgers were less likely 
to use condoms than their non-pledging counterparts, and those who remained 
virgins were "more likely to substitute oral and/or anal sex for vaginal sex."

The ultimate item of bad news: there was no difference in rates of sexually 
transmitted disease in pledgers and non-pledgers, prompting the authors to 
write, "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, and they are not always consistent with our 
preferences. When policymakers 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.
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