DEFENDING DARE . . . AND APPLE PIE

Apple pie, motherhood, baseball and DARE - quite frankly - all deserve
defending. Drug prevention in general, and DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance
Education) in particular, have recently become targets of choice for those
who doubt prevention, doubt DARE and propose, ever so subtly, to edge the
nation toward the legalization of dangerous Schedule I narcotics.

No course would be more morally, physically and spiritually destructive to
America's next generation than choosing drug legalization over
common-sense, fact-based education, such as that promoted by the revised
DARE America curriculum.

While drug use rose markedly between 1992 and 1997, the causes for this
were complex.

Drug prevention funding - and its defense before Congress - often took a
back seat; supply reduction efforts were cut by hundreds of millions of
dollars, effectively increasingly the load borne by law enforcement,
teachers, parents, treatment professionals and those fighting illegal drugs
domestically; and dangerous new drugs arrived on the scene, including
Colombian heroin (smokable and 10 times more pure than in the 1980s),
Californian methamphetamine (which began to appear in young bodies across
hospital emergency rooms and morgues), GHB, high-purity cocaine and
marijuana, LSD and ecstasy.

None of this was DARE's doing.

In fact, DARE and drug prevention efforts that have followed the DARE
model, have been responsible for the turn around in "new initiation rates"
that materialized in 1998 and 1999. Specifically, while the 18-to-25 age
cohort (no 1onger in contact with fact-laden DARE officers, dedicated
teachers and parents) has suffered a 28 percent increase in current use
between 1997 and 1999, youth users of marijuana fell by 2.3 million between
1997 and 1998 (11 percent overall), and the average age of first use rose
for the fifth straight year in 1998. At the same time, for kids ages 12 to
17, not only did overall drug use fall by more than 20 percent between 1997
and 1999, but current use of marijuana fell by 26 percent in the same
period. According to White House Drug Control Policy Director Barry
McCaffrey, this "remarkable success" is due, in no small measure, to "the
DARE program." Congress, too, understands this lesson.

Objective indicators of success for drug prevention broadly, and DARE
specifically, are mounting.

DARE works increasingly with parents and middle school students.

Hard numbers show these strategies are bearing fruit.

In 1999, 45 percent of teens who reported no discussions with their parents
about the dangers of drug use, ended up using drugs.

At the same time, parents who spoke to their teens a little about these
dangers created sufficient reflection in their teens that only 33 percent
used. Of those teens who learned a lot from parents about drug use, only 26
percent used. DARE now offers a panoply of information to parents.

This year, DARE, which boasts an in-school curriculum updated six times
since 1997, to reflect societywide changes in youth violence and available
drugs, has innovated at the middle school and parent levels, expanded
training of law officers at five regional centers, created a web presence,
and will train - if fully funded - more than 1,000 new law officers (for
more than 80 hours each) to deliver no-nonsense facts and resistance
skills, and to serve as living role models, in every middle school in
America, or so far as funding reaches.

Extensive research - with scientifically sound control groups -strongly
supports the drug prevention efforts of groups like DARE.

One recent study cited to criticize DARE, the so-called Kentucky study, was
subsequently condemned for having no real control group and turning on an
out-of-date curriculum. At the same time, studies in two other states,
respectively involving 3,200 subjects in 33 schools (Ohio) and 2,500
students from 14 communities (Pennsylvania), both conducted by Ohio State,
produced overwhelmingly positive findings as to DARE's impact on kids'
attitudes and behavior - they were more resistant to both drug use and
violence.

While no study is flawless, the bulk of research strongly indicates
teaching these lessons is far smarter than not teaching them. In
combination with parent and role model reinforcement, DARE may be the best
hope against the current trend toward disinformation and indifference.

Speaking bluntly, efforts to indict DARE are shorthand for minimizing drug
prevention. This is the stated mission of many who wish to run down DARE's
efforts and the entire drug prevention renaissance. In fact, no need is
greater than to teach our children the basic dangers of these increasingly
available drugs.

That responsibility lies with parents and teachers, young people and
members of Congress who should step up to rebut the legalization of
dangerous Schedule I narcotics and unabashedly support such sound programs
as DARE.

Contrary to the well-funded detractors from right-wrong no-use anti-drug
education, there is plenty of danger in not teaching the lessons DARE has
effectively brought to kids and parents.

Today, DARE is taught in more than 80 percent of all school districts - and
reaches 26 million students in more than 300,000 class rooms each year.
This is a blessing worth counting.

Like motherhood, apple pie and baseball, nothing good is without some
controversy, but let's be clear: As a sage once noted, all it takes for
evil to prevail is for good people to be silent. And that is why there
should be a chorus of voices rebutting the detractors of sound drug
prevention, defending DARE and stopping the deceivers who recklessly
promote narcotics legalization.

Robert Charles was chief staffer to the Speaker's Task Force on A Drug Free
America (1997-1999), and chief counsel and chief of staff to the U.S. House
National Security Subcommittee of the Government Reform and Oversight
Committee (1995-1999).