Lothar121

Anti-drug Overdose?
Many school prevention programs don't help, scientists say, and may even do harm.
Marnell Jameson | LA Times | 05/14/06

LIKE millions of kids across America, ninth-grader Mariana Kouloumian was taught in elementary school not to drink or use drugs — ever. To her, the message seemed clear except for one hitch: It didn't square with what she saw in the real world, or even at home.

"When I told my parents what I learned in [school], that drinking was bad, they said they knew that, but that a drink once in a while was OK," Mariana says.

Today, at 14, the Los Angeles girl dismisses much of what she learned in the drug-education program, saying that when she's older she plans to follow the more moderate example set by her mother and father.

"My parents know how much alcohol they can handle. They only drink socially — and wouldn't drink and drive." Further, she credits her parents, not school lessons, with helping her turn down tobacco, alcohol and drugs — all of which she's been offered. "I learned what I know at home," she says. To her, the anti-drug program seemed out of touch.

Increasingly, many academic scholars and government researchers agree. They point to a growing body of evidence that supports Mariana's instincts. One-size-fits-all lessons do little to prepare kids for the real drug choices they're likely to face, these experts say. By condemning all drugs as bad — not distinguishing between legitimate medications and, in moderation, alcohol — such programs can confuse kids and ultimately cheapen their own messages.

"Oversimplification is just one reason most school-based drug-prevention programs don't work," says David Hanson, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who has spent the last 30 years studying alcohol use, abuse and education. "The decisions kids face are more nuanced than most drug programs make them appear."

The few programs shown to be successful are often not the ones used in schools. In a 2002 study from the North Carolina university, researchers looked at a national sampling of drug-prevention programs at public and private schools. They found that although 82% of schools used some kind of program, only 35% of public schools and 13% of private schools were using one that researchers had found effective.

Some researchers even suggest that school drug-prevention programs could do harm, particularly to younger students. Not only might they give kids a message that's so simplistic it isn't true, but the programs can also encourage kids to view themselves as potential drug users.

They can also portray an exaggerated view of the prevalence of drugs (thereby implying use is more accepted), and, sometimes, even offer technical information that kids could use on the street.

Nonetheless, every year, U.S. schools pour millions of dollars into substance-abuse education that hasn't been shown to be effective — $750 million to $1 billion alone for DARE, or Drug Abuse Resistance Education, by far the nation's largest school-based drug-prevention program, but one that is not on federally approved lists. The 16-week curriculum brings local police officers into classrooms to give lessons and share off-the-street experiences, driving home the point that drug use is wrong.

Under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which includes a component known as Safe and Drug-Free Schools, every public school is supposed to provide some kind of drug-prevention education. If the schools use federal funds for such efforts, they must use programs on the government's lists of those with "demonstrated effectiveness." Schools may use programs not on the list if they use local funds, which many choose to do.

Support for DARE, for example, is still high. The program is used in 70% of school districts, says Dale Brown, regional director of Los Angeles-based DARE America, although the Department of Education took the program off its approved list in 2001.

Richard Clayton, associate dean of research at the University of Kentucky College of Public Health, who has studied drug-education programs, says DARE has been effective in other ways. "More kids showed up to school on DARE days, and DARE had and still has the best infrastructure of any drug program. We need to fix the message, not change the messenger."

Despite the mixed track record, many parents, teachers and school administrators maintain that such programs are crucial if children are to learn to resist peer pressure down the road.

"We need to take a preventive approach and help kids as early as possible to stay away from drugs and alcohol," says Lori Vollandt, coordinator for health education programs for the Los Angeles Unified School District. "The sooner kids learn to take care of their bodies the better."

Popular, but questionable

The real worry is that the science-based research to date has found that most anti-drug education programs don't reduce the rate at which kids abuse drugs and alcohol.

According to Monitoring the Future, a study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse that since 1976 has been tracking illicit drug use (not including alcohol) among high schoolers, 58% of 12th-graders had used an illicit drug in 1976. Use peaked in 1980 at 68%, then dropped to a low of 40% in 1992. By 1998 it was back up to 1976 levels, and for the last few years use has dipped to around 52%.

"The trend rises and falls, and we have no clue why," Clayton says.

Drug-education advocates say the success of the programs should be measured in terms of the kids who don't use drugs — and thus don't show up in these numbers — not those who do.

__________________

Donate. Write. Make a difference.. Posting Guidelines | Marijuana Policy Project | NORML | DPA | Drug WarRant | Media Awareness Project

Buzzby

Legitimate medications can be just as bad as street drugs if used improperly. Alcohol and tobacco are by far the most dangerous drugs used in America. The message of moderation is by far the most important. Children should be taught that adults use psychoactive substances for many reasons and purposes and that such use, in moderation, is not harmful.

Current programs label any drug use as "abuse", just as the alcohol prohibitionists did before the passage of the 18th Amendment. If drug education would treat the subject honestly, distinguishing between use and abuse, children would be far more likely to avoid problems with drugs later in life. Children should be taught that people can form good relationships or bad relationships with drugs, and that there are practical ways to avoid forming those bad relationships.

__________________

Frojoe

When I was around that age, dare and similar programs just made me curious. My Mom had the most effective message. She told me she knew I would most likely smoke some pot, but not to go overboard, do harder drugs, or let it effect my school work. That helped be a responsible user, now I don't smoke during the school year because it was hurting my grades. (I can almost smoke again !!!!) The only school drug program that I considered effective was a health teacher my freshman year of high school. He was the only one to ever conseed that mj wasn't very harmfull in small quantities. "Just say no" is not an effective policy.

TheNewGuy

DARE and programs like it get more people on weed than if it didn't exist, for a simple reason. If you have a program that just says "drugs are evil, weed makes you stupid, just say no, etc etc" and then you look around at all the people smoking weed and they aren't having any negetive consequences because of it, whats going to happen? They told me that cannabis was dangerous, then all my friends started smoking and nothing bad happened to them, so I started too. Lo and behold, I had nothing but positive experiences with it, so from then on I just didn't believe anything the government told me. I bet almost everyone here has had a similiar experience.

__________________
"Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power." ~P.J. O'Rourke

Mar-iguana

Oh, wow, 1 billion dollars spent on a drug program that doesn't even show any effectiveness? hmmm...could that money be possibly spent anywhere else in the education system? like maybe helping out the teachers that actually teach something, maybe keeping them above the poverty level.