Drug Prevention Placebo

How DARE wastes time, money, and police

Jeff Elliott from the March 1995 issue

(Page 9 of 9)

Despite the revamped curriculum, controversy ensued as DARE America tried to influence The American Journal of Public Health and NIJ released the good news-only flyer. Spokespersons from NIJ insist that DARE America did not influence their decision to tone down the negative aspects of the research, claiming instead that their independent reviewers had recommended that approach. Who were these reviewers, and how "independent" were they? NIJ declines to reveal their identities. "It's always been our policy to keep the names private, so there won't be pressure," says a NIJ spokeswoman. "We feel strongly about the independence of our evaluators."

But DARE America readily supplies the name of one of the reviewers: William DeJong. The same man whose early, positive critique was so pivotal in rooting DARE in our schools.

Says DeJong, "RTI should have said, 'Here's what we did. It's the best we can do with [our analysis], but not too much should be made of this because there's a new curriculum.' They should have kept it in perspective."

Now a lecturer at Harvard, DeJong says he hoped "RTI would back away from its strong anti-DARE conclusion." DeJong particularly objects to comparing DARE to programs that showed better results but were university-based and required intensive training or a difficult-to-sustain level of resources. "It's like comparing a nurtured hothouse flower to a national program."

DeJong's comment brings to mind a fundamental complaint made by critics: DARE is fast becoming a government-sanctioned monopoly. DARE is now in 8,000 communities and more than 50 percent of our schools. Six million children will receive DARE instruction this year, and another 19 million will have classroom visits from their local DARE officer. DARE has grown like the kudzu vine, blanketing the country and smothering competing "hothouse" drug-prevention projects. For instance, both Andy Johnson and Bill Hansen have developed drug-education programs since the days of Project SMART, but compared to the enormous numbers of kids receiving DARE, these are little more than humble science-fair projects.

And without research, we won't know what--if anything--will prevent kids from abusing drugs. This is the dismal news about drug education: All programs are qualified failures, providing only small gains that soon disappear. For all the tinkering over the years, Project SMART has achieved only modest reductions in drug abuse, primarily by postponing the age at which a child begins to experiment with cigarettes, alcohol, and other drugs.

Asked if the new version of DARE was tested before it was introduced into classrooms nationwide, DARE America spokeswoman Roberta Silverman says there were pilot tests, but "we only did a limited evaluation of the new curriculum--just a checks-and-balances kind of thing about the pilot testing."

The new DARE curriculum might be better than the old. Although highly unlikely, it is also possible that it could be worse, more likely to produce a boomerang effect. Without evaluations, we don't know. Are there at least plans to put the new program under a microscope? "We don't have any research lined up, but we're seeking government funding to do a longitudinal study," says Silverman.

Even if started today, a five-year longitudinal study would be completed in the year 2000, just as the children of the first DARE graduates will be introduced to their DARE officer in kindergarten. By 2000, DARE will likely be in all our schools, and all those "hothouse" programs will have become academic footnotes. And doubtless all of the parents, teachers, administrators, and police departments will still embrace the painless, easy solutions that DARE offers, happy that at least they're doing something positive to stop the scourge of drug abuse by children.