School-based anti-drug programs such as
DARE and Red Ribbon Week are largely ineffective in preventing
students from using alcohol, drugs and tobacco, according to a
comprehensive study comissioned by the California State Department
of Education. The study, conducted by a coalition of researchers
and professors, found that programs that rely on lectures and
assemblies to promote the evils of drugs and alcohol lack credibility
with the states teen-ager, and fail to reach the students most
at risk of using drugs. But the Department of Education has no
plans to publish the study's report and disputes its findings.
"Our problems with this study had to do with what we thought
was faulty methodology" said Greg Wolf, consultant for the
department. Wolf, who was not directly involved in the funding
or implementation of the study said he could not specify which
aspects of the study the department questions. Other officials
could not be reached for comment.
The researchers defended the study and said
they don't understand why the state has not published it. In the
study, more than 40% of students polled in a random sample told
researchers their decision whether or not to use intoxicants was
"influenced not at all" by programs teaching drugs'
harmful effects and strategies for preventing use. DARE-Drug Abuse
Resistance Education-is the nationwide school-based program that
was started by the Los Angeles Police DeparLment it exposes children
beginning in the fifth grade to curriculum that focuses on the
problems created by drug use and tries to te! ach them that drug
use Is not universal. There is no way to truly gauge the effectiveness
of DARE." said Sgt. George Villalobos an administrative supervisor
for the acclaimed anti-drug program. But we know it's successful
because of the people we talk to all the time. I'd like to know
what those who conducted the study recommend in place of this.
The researchers, Joel Brown of Berkeley-based
Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation. Marianne D'Emidio-Caston
of UC Santa Barbara and Jordan Horowitz of Southwest Regional
Laboratory in Los Alamitos, spent more than three years conducting
research for the study and reported their findings at a drug abuse
convention in Santa Monica on Friday. The 5.000-student, 240-school
study concluded that as students age they become progressively
more convinced that drug-prevention programs are ineffective.
While just 10% of elementary school students had a negative or
neutral attitude toward drug-prevention programs, that number
jumped to 90% among high school students, the study found. Seven
in 20 students felt a negative or neutral attitude toward their
drug-prevention educators and three In 10 dislIked their drug-prevention
counselors "a little" or "a lot." One elementary
school student quoted in the study's draft report said: "Oh,
they lie to you so that you won't do drugs. They think you're
dumb".A high school student said, "They are not in this
for helping you, they are in for setting rid of the bad kids and
just having all the good kids in school."
"These programs are just not as effective
as they could be,' researcher Horowitz said. "The school
system may not be the best place for these programs. A growing
body of research is finding that the most effective drug education
programs help children deal with peer pressure to use drugs by
engaging them in group discussions and role-playing, rather than
by having an adult standing in front of the class exh! orting
children to abstain. A study of 5,700 youths released last month
by the Partnership for Drug-Free Southern California found that
teen-agers consider in-school programs the top source of information
about the risks of drugs. Even so, the survey found that children
and teen-agers in Los Angeles County are less likely than peers
nationally to believe that using drugs is harmful and are significantly
more likely to experment with drugs.
Copyright L.A. Times 1998
