What is success? If you are a failure but everyone says otherwise, are you successful by proxy? This is a question which the administrators of the Drug Abuse Resistance Program, or 'D.A.R.E.' should be asking themselves.
I remember my D.A.R.E. classes. The officer had a display of pictures of a rotted mouth and gums ostensibly caused by cigarette smoking, and the weak theory was that if cigarettes could do that, just imagine what weed could do. (Never one to be satisfied with conjecture I nonetheless ran right out and decided to find out on my own just what weed could, in fact, do.) He also had a badass pimp-style walking stick, which concealed a pipe in one end and a blade in another. Batman should be so well-outfitted.
In all fairness, I took the D.A.R.E. "course" in it's very first year of life, in 1983. Perhaps it has gotten better. Not so, according to reports from the GAO cited by Paul Aremantano in a recent publication form the NORML Foundation.
According to the GAO report on D.A.R.E.'s 20th anniversary review:
-->A 1991 University of Kentucky study of 2,071 sixth graders that found no difference in the past-year use of cigarettes, alcohol or marijuana among DARE graduates and non-graduates two years after completing the program.
-->A 1996 University of Colorado study of over 940 elementary school students that found no difference with regard to illicit drug use, delay of experimentation with illicit drugs, self-esteem, or resistance to peer pressure among D.A.R.E. graduates and non-graduates three years after completing the program.
-->A 1998 University of Illinois study of 1,798 elementary school students that found no differences with regards to the recent use of illicit drugs among D.A.R.E. graduates and non-graduates six years after completing the program.
-->A 1999 follow-up study by the University of Kentucky that found no difference in lifetime, past-year, or past-month use of marijuana among D.A.R.E. graduates and non-graduates 10 years after completing the program.
Even D.A.R.E.'s own leadership admits that it's results are abysmal and that it needs 'revamping.' Unfortunately, like Social Security, Amtrak, and the Department of Homeland Defence (woops, slipped into a time warp and saw the future for a moment) the group is absolutely positive that the solution is that if it just had more funding and broader-based power it would really be able to churn out some impressive results over, say, the next two decades.
Nevermind that the GAO itself cannot seem to find an exact number on what D.A.R.E. costs taxpayers now. The GAO estimates that current funding for the program is between $ 600 million and $ 750 million per year, which is Republican for $ 900 million per year. Add to that the funds spent at the state and municipal level, estimated at $ 200 to $ 225 million per year, and 'incidental' expense such as training, overtime etc. which never figures into the accounting but which may be as much as $ 400 million per year, according to an economic study done at La Moyne College in New York.
So, we have an $ 800 million to $ 1.375 BILLION a year black hole for tax funds to be funneled down which does little in the way of actual work, but which creates an atomic mushroom cloud of good vibrations, giving everyone an excellent and eminently photo-op-able public service bonfire to dance around, using your money as kindling. People love to feel like they're "doing something about it" and the highly-visible D.A.R.E. campaign for has for two decades given parents, teachers, law enforcement and politicians an easy out on the difficult issue of kids and drugs.
I posit that if you have kids, you have a moral and ethical responsibility to offer them guidance on the issue of drug use. Adults shouldn't use drugs. We do anyway. But we're also done growning and are typically using our own money to do so, so barring all my coke money getting funneled to the al-Qaeda or the CIA or some other terrorist organisation, we're only harming ourselves. We are acting from a reasonably-educated vantge point in most cases wheras many children are not. If my own son makes it just four more years drug-fee he'll have my own record beaten and I consider it pretty much a given that he will. But it is an unethical default on your moral responsibility to consider the sturm und drang of such publicity campaigns as D.A.R.E. to be a substitute for parental care and authority.
Like virtually all other governmental programs D.A.R.E. should be scrapped. There's another $ 8.00 or more a year on your tax returns -- hey, you could get a J and a 40oz around here for that kind of money. I'm all for it.
Phaedrus
I remember my D.A.R.E. classes. The officer had a display of pictures of a rotted mouth and gums ostensibly caused by cigarette smoking, and the weak theory was that if cigarettes could do that, just imagine what weed could do. (Never one to be satisfied with conjecture I nonetheless ran right out and decided to find out on my own just what weed could, in fact, do.) He also had a badass pimp-style walking stick, which concealed a pipe in one end and a blade in another. Batman should be so well-outfitted.
In all fairness, I took the D.A.R.E. "course" in it's very first year of life, in 1983. Perhaps it has gotten better. Not so, according to reports from the GAO cited by Paul Aremantano in a recent publication form the NORML Foundation.
According to the GAO report on D.A.R.E.'s 20th anniversary review:
-->A 1991 University of Kentucky study of 2,071 sixth graders that found no difference in the past-year use of cigarettes, alcohol or marijuana among DARE graduates and non-graduates two years after completing the program.
-->A 1996 University of Colorado study of over 940 elementary school students that found no difference with regard to illicit drug use, delay of experimentation with illicit drugs, self-esteem, or resistance to peer pressure among D.A.R.E. graduates and non-graduates three years after completing the program.
-->A 1998 University of Illinois study of 1,798 elementary school students that found no differences with regards to the recent use of illicit drugs among D.A.R.E. graduates and non-graduates six years after completing the program.
-->A 1999 follow-up study by the University of Kentucky that found no difference in lifetime, past-year, or past-month use of marijuana among D.A.R.E. graduates and non-graduates 10 years after completing the program.
Even D.A.R.E.'s own leadership admits that it's results are abysmal and that it needs 'revamping.' Unfortunately, like Social Security, Amtrak, and the Department of Homeland Defence (woops, slipped into a time warp and saw the future for a moment) the group is absolutely positive that the solution is that if it just had more funding and broader-based power it would really be able to churn out some impressive results over, say, the next two decades.
Nevermind that the GAO itself cannot seem to find an exact number on what D.A.R.E. costs taxpayers now. The GAO estimates that current funding for the program is between $ 600 million and $ 750 million per year, which is Republican for $ 900 million per year. Add to that the funds spent at the state and municipal level, estimated at $ 200 to $ 225 million per year, and 'incidental' expense such as training, overtime etc. which never figures into the accounting but which may be as much as $ 400 million per year, according to an economic study done at La Moyne College in New York.
So, we have an $ 800 million to $ 1.375 BILLION a year black hole for tax funds to be funneled down which does little in the way of actual work, but which creates an atomic mushroom cloud of good vibrations, giving everyone an excellent and eminently photo-op-able public service bonfire to dance around, using your money as kindling. People love to feel like they're "doing something about it" and the highly-visible D.A.R.E. campaign for has for two decades given parents, teachers, law enforcement and politicians an easy out on the difficult issue of kids and drugs.
I posit that if you have kids, you have a moral and ethical responsibility to offer them guidance on the issue of drug use. Adults shouldn't use drugs. We do anyway. But we're also done growning and are typically using our own money to do so, so barring all my coke money getting funneled to the al-Qaeda or the CIA or some other terrorist organisation, we're only harming ourselves. We are acting from a reasonably-educated vantge point in most cases wheras many children are not. If my own son makes it just four more years drug-fee he'll have my own record beaten and I consider it pretty much a given that he will. But it is an unethical default on your moral responsibility to consider the sturm und drang of such publicity campaigns as D.A.R.E. to be a substitute for parental care and authority.
Like virtually all other governmental programs D.A.R.E. should be scrapped. There's another $ 8.00 or more a year on your tax returns -- hey, you could get a J and a 40oz around here for that kind of money. I'm all for it.
Phaedrus
