Meagan McArdle, who writes under the name Jane Galt at the Asymmetrical Information (that's an economics term) blog, has become one of my favorite bloggers because she honestly speaks her mind without snarkiness or worrying about what either her detractors or philosophical fellow travelers will think about it. A case in point is her unflinching look at young people and addiction and why DARE has a dishonest message:
Most people can take or leave most things; and the things that one can take or leave vary by individual. I can count on the fingers of one thumb the number of times I have thought "I need a drink"; even "I want a drink" is not something I muse very frequently. I'm no teetotaller--I'm sure there are readers of this very blog who have seen me quaff four or five drinks in an evening. But if you told me that, starting now, I could never have another drink for the rest of my life, I wouldn't be terrifically discomfited.
On the other hand, if I let myself smoke a little, I will end up back on a-pack-and-a-half a day faster than you can say "emphysema". My behaviour towards caffeine is, if anything worse. It took me five years to quit smoking. And frankly, if I were diagnosed with a terminal disease today, the first damn thing I'd do is buy a pack of Camel Lights. Yet most of the people I know who did cocaine stopped on their own, some through never developing a habit, and others through getting tired of it.
So DARE's message is not honest. But what would be a good honest message to send? "Go try a bunch of these addictive substances, and learn which ones you can't walk away from. Then quit those, but it's okay to keep doing the others."
The studies I've read about DARE (and they are few and far between) indicate it does not, in fact, work well. But nobody wants to write about that, because it is such an obviously well-intentioned program. Who wants to seem to be against telling kids not to do drugs? And, as McArdle points out, what's a good alternative? One of her commenters suggests one (because of the approach she takes to isssues, she also has better commenters than most blogs):
How about the radical proposal that we not have our schools send any "message" to our children with regard to whether or not they should use drugs, but simply provide them with accurate information as to what is known about both the risks and benefits of various substances? If you present it to them as a decision they need to make for themselves, I think they are more likely to make intelligent decisions than if you give them something to rebel against by trying to scare them off.
Comments
The Officer Friendly approach has never worked.
One of my favorite stories comes from a gal who attended Elmhurst in the '70s. Sheriff Bud Meeks was there giving a presentation on drugs. What innocent times those were. He handed a doobie into the audience to be passed up and down the rows so the students could examine it and smell it. When the demo was over, Meeks was flabergasted when he received two joints back.
From what I've read about the DARE program, it may actually breed similar disrespect for the law. Several years ago there was a very good article in the New Republic about a University of Chicago study of children who'd participated in the DARE program. DARE students actually had higher rates of experimentation with drugs than students whose schools had no DARE program.
The quarrel with DARE, as I recall, is that the program is heavy-handed and children see through this sort of inauthenticity. Probably many of them have already tried marijuana as it's a standard rite of passage in middle America and they know it's silly to equate it with meth or heroin or even to pretend that it will lead to meth or heroin. If anything, this tactic might make kids question the seriousness of drugs like meth or heroin.
Sure it's a well-intentioned program. And according to the U of C it's been paving the road to Hell quite nicely.
If we, as parents, would just do our job all the other nanny programs wouldn't be necessary.