By the autumn of 1985, DARE was entrenched in the Los Angeles schools. That by itself was good news in the "Just Say No" years; most of the other drug-prevention programs in use around the country were small-scale projects, untested outside of a handful of classrooms. And worse, many of those programs were found to have little or no effect on drug use when evaluated. Some even had the boomerang effect, like the prototypes of Project SMART. There was just one problem with DARE: It hadn't been independently evaluated at all.
To find out how well it worked, the National Institute of Justice sent consultant William DeJong to California. "I wrote the first published study of DARE [in 1986], and it showed that there were positive results," says DeJong. "Based on my study, NIJ decided to devote money to DARE." Another reason NIJ went ahead, according to DeJong, was that DARE was based on Project SMART. Then in its fifth year, the government-funded SMART had refined its program several generations beyond the prototype adapted by DARE.
With the stamp of NIJ approval, Gates won a $140,000 grant from the Bureau of Justice Assistance, a part of the Department of Justice, to take DARE nationwide. DeJong continued to be involved, authoring the DARE implementation manual for BJA.
While $140,000 might be enough to fund a hometown anti-drug program, DARE needed far more to go national. The solution came from Congress in the form of the Drug Free Schools and Communities Act of 1986. Buried in the small print was an entitlement for at least 10 percent of the state grants to governors to go only to programs that included "classroom instruction by uniformed law enforcement officials." A host of other criteria were listed that were met only by programs "such as Project Drug Abuse Resistance Education." By 1992, their share of the federal pie came to almost $10 million.
To manage the growing DARE movement and help spread the gospel, the nonprofit corporation DARE America was formed in 1987. More grants from BJA soon followed, which allowed DARE America to establish regional training centers throughout the United States. DARE was fast becoming America's de facto drug-education program.
The 1986 entitlement helped fuel DARE's explosive growth, but it by no means paid all the bills. Most funding came from the army of fervent DARE supporters in the community, eager to find an easy solution to the problem of juvenile drug abuse. DARE became "a rallying symbol to do something positive about the drug abuse problem," as one state director of DARE told Congress in 1990.
Once again, Petaluma, California is probably typical. It costs the city over $100,000 each year to pay the salaries for Officer Campbell and a part-time reserve officer and to supply DARE workbooks and awards to approximately 800 children. (Graduates are given free DARE T-shirts, pencils, rulers, and a diploma.) Civic-minded real-estate developers have supplied most of these funds since 1990, and individuals in the community also make donations. But the contractors' tithe ends this year; what will the city do?
Probably look to Uncle Sam. The Drug Free Schools and Communities Act--now called the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act of 1994--includes more than $400 million dollars for DARE and other programs. Gone is the $10 million entitlement; now DARE competes with other programs for its piece of the federal action. But of the 14 activities listed in the bill, most are vague: "Before- and after-school activities" is a typical description. And not only is DARE mentioned by name, it is specified twice, in different parts of the act. (The only other specific program mentioned is "Project Legal Lives," a program for district attorneys to conduct mock trials.)
And it's not difficult to predict how a city like Petaluma will spend its drug-education dollars. DARE has enormous grassroots support; the kids like it; the parents and teachers like it; and perhaps most of all, the local police like it. Any program with such grassroots support wields considerable clout on Capitol Hill; when the Clinton administration recommended eliminating drug- education entitlements in March 1994, the House killed the motion, 418 to 1.
DARE also appears twice in the crime bill, where it will wrestle all comers for $284 million by 1996, rising to $375 million by the end of the decade. Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), chair of the Judiciary Committee, takes credit for the inclusion. "As you know, it's a pretty popular program, so it wasn't a question of not including it," says a Biden staffer.
How much does DARE cost nationally? Several newspapers have claimed $700 million annually, close to the appropriation for the entire Drug Enforcement Administration. DARE America spokesperson Silverman sees the $700 million statistic as sloppy journalism. "In 1992, we estimated the value of officer services at $153 million. Actual cash for DARE America was $1.5 million. I don't know where they got $700 million."
But according to USA Today reporter Dennis Cauchon, the estimate comes from her boss, DARE America Executive Director Glenn Levant. "Levant and I went over all the numbers," Cauchon says. "Including every cent in private donations. It includes all money actually spent on DARE every year."
All told, local DARE programs are eligible for a direct share of more than half a billion federal dollars annually, still short of the $700 million total in operating costs. As in Petaluma, the difference will be made up by civic groups, individuals, and local government. School districts that are strapped to buy textbooks pitch in, as do cities and counties teetering on bankruptcy. In Petaluma, DARE Officer Terry Campbell tells a story: "At the end of the school year, the teacher asked the kids what they wanted to do with the leftover class treasury. She told them they could have a pizza party, whatever they wanted. The kids said they wanted to give the money to DARE." With such enthusiasm for the program, it almost begs the question: What if it doesn't work?
The Emperor's Clothing
DARE keeps children away from drugs. That raison d'être sold thousands of communities on the program and keeps DARE in the schools, even if budget cuts must be made somewhere else. But by 1991, there were more than a dozen studies that claimed DARE didn't work at all. Not that it was useless: It had positive effects on children's knowledge about drugs, helped develop their social skills, and improved their attitude about police. But all these studies said the same thing about drug use--if DARE had any effect at all, it was short lived.
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