Pubdate: Fri, 19 Jun 2009
Source: News Journal, The (Wilmington, DE)
Copyright: 2009 The News Journal
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/1c6Xgdq3
Website: http://www.delawareonline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/822

FIRST, DETERMINE WHAT WORKS BEST IN SCHOOL DRUG  PROGRAMS

President Barack Obama's reversal of support for school  drug programs
that he and Vice President Joe Biden  supported during their Senate
years is a welcome  admission that such a policy is not "the backbone
of  youth drug prevention."

The president acknowledges that the programs -- which  award state
grants for the work -- are poorly designed.  The White House cites a
respected 2001 study that the  underlying thinking for the funding is
"profoundly  flawed."

But overwhelming anecdotal evidence of student criminal  activity tied
to illegal drug use, also linked to  embarrassing high-school dropout
rates over the two  decades, has been solid ground to rethink the
direction  of funding.

Since the 1980s, when the drug war emerged as the  nation's No. 1
social ill, there has been much trial  and error in structuring school
drug programs. A  30-year history should have netted some fact-based 
successes by now.

William Modzeleski, head of the Office of Safe and  Drug-Free Schools
in the Education Department, offered  an incomplete explanation for
the poor results: Grants  are too small to be effective. More than
half the  recipients get less than $10,000.

Instead, good intentions have ruled, rather than a body  of best
practices that can be replicated to a degree  where the dollars spent
are justified, even when an  economic crisis is not at hand.

Congress's funding has been a rollercoaster ride. In  2003, it
allotted $472 million for the grants, but  three years later President
George W. Bush proposed  whittling the alotment to $346.5 million. He
asked for  only $100 million last year. But an election-year  Congress
nearly tripled fundnig.

Congress has to go back to the drawing board with a  commitment to
invest in what works and to divest its  funding from programs that
show no results. 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr