Drug Prevention Placebo

How DARE wastes time, money, and police

Jeff Elliott from the March 1995 issue

(Page 2 of 9)

Despite pressure, Public Health published the report in September 1994. Public Health Editor Dr. Mervin Susser sees the attempt to interfere with the publication of a scientific paper as misconceived at best, censorious at worst. Susser adds, "The worst of it is, that this study was exceptionally well-reviewed by peers in the field. It's very rare that an article passes so unscratched through review. The uniform appraisal was that it was first rate."

How can Public Health reviewers think the work first-rate when NIJ reviewers viewed it as flawed? Roberta Silverman has an idea: "I've asked myself that before. I think [NIJ] had a better understanding of the issues, and it reflects [Public Health's] dispute with NIJ. It was hot and sexy for Public Health to criticize DARE."

"[We] decided not to publish it because there were problems with the research," says NIJ spokeswoman Ann Voight. Last fall, Voight told the Boston Globe, "We stand behind the DARE Program as it has evolved. It has made a positive impact on children and law enforcement."

In other instances, DARE supporters have lashed out against those who fault the program. After a 1993 story questioning the effectiveness of DARE appeared in USA Today, reporter Dennis Cauchon received letters from classrooms in different parts of the country, all addressed to "Dear DARE-basher," and all using near-identical language.

When a major television network planned a story on the program, DARE America cooperated until it became apparent that the story wasn't going to be a puff piece. "They worked very hard to get our story suppressed," the producer says. After filming a segment about one prominent anti-DARE activist, the producer remembers an angry confrontation with Silverman, who asked why they were "talking to a pro-marijuana supporter."

To tell DARE supporters that you have spoken with program critics often invokes astonishment, like telling Baptists you've been to hell and chatted with Old Nick himself. This us-against-them viewpoint is clearly stated in a November 1994 press release announcing the Substance Abuse Prevention and Law Enforcement Community Partnership Conference. Titled "Pro-Drug Groups Behind Attack on Prevention Programs," the release damns as advocates of drug legalization any who criticize DARE.

"Our detractors like to characterize DARE as an 'Orwellian reality' or 'Big Brother' at work," DARE America Executive Director Glenn Levant is quoted as saying. "These bush-league tactics are transparent for what they are: attempts to support various individual personal agendas at the expense of our children."

But with all that has been written about DARE, few critics have actually been inside a DARE classroom, and few supporters know the origins of the controversial program. Only when you understand both does the true picture emerge. Whether that picture appears "Orwellian" depends on the viewer, but it certainly supports the claim that DARE fails at its basic goal of preventing drug use.

In the DARE Classroom

DARE Officer Terry Campbell is on stage. It is the first time he has visited this fourth-grade class, but most of the children already know him well. As the full-time DARE instructor for Petaluma, California, he has been in the classrooms since 1988. One of the program's recent graduates was Polly Klaas, whose abduction and murder brought sad fame to this small town, 45 minutes north of San Francisco.

After he introduces himself, the 20-minute lesson begins. Campbell asks if anyone knows what DARE means and a girl is quick to respond, "Drug Abuse Resistance Education."

"What's a drug?" Campbell asks. The kids have ready answers, a mix of formal names and common slang. Cocaine. Alcohol. Tobacco. Coke. Pot.

"I know a different kind of drug," a boy adds. "It's a medicine."

Campbell asks, "What is it?"

"Penicillin." The officer asks if his parents ever gave him Children's Tylenol for a headache. Yes, they have.