The Public Policy: Unsafe at Any Speed
Bovard, James
"The Public Policy: Unsafe at Any Speed" by James Bovard Unsafe at Any Speed Turning kids into druggies and snitches....
...But the Wall Street Journal noted in 1992: "In two recent cases in Boston, children who had tipped police stepped out of their homes carrying DARE diplomas as police arrived to arrest their parents...
...The Boston Globe noted that "some specialists say that schoolchildren are being diagnosed and medicated for the disorder in too cavalier a fashion," in part because of "increased pressure on financially troubled schools to provide a quick fix for disruptive children...
...An important implication is that DARE could be taking the place of other, more beneficial druguse curricula...
...Unfortunately, DARE appears to be relatively ineffective at preventing drug abuse, and is far less effective than some competing drug education programs...
...RTI concluded: For drug use, the average effect size for interactive programs was three times greater than the average DARE effect size...
...Similar DARE-related drug busts of parents have been reported in Colorado, Oklahoma, Maryland, and Maine...
...But in court, I heard them tell the judge that I wanted my mom and dad arrested...
...DARE spokeswoman Roberta Silverman argued that drug busts which occur after the training are often unfairly linked to DARE...
...It is rare for FDA officials to rush to comment on studies showing potential carcinogenic effects of drugs-but Ritalin, apparently, is special...
...The Atlanta Journal and Constitution reported in 1992, "In Gwinnett [County, Georgia], lawsuits have been filed by parents against school officials and doctors alleging malpractice and fraud when they advised the use of Ritalin without telling parents about severe side effects...
...American schools are providing more anti-drug use education than ever before, primarily through the DARE programDrug Abuse Resistance Education...
...As a report by a committee of concerned Massachusetts parents from the Ashfield-Sanfield school district concluded last June, "There is nothing new about police coming into schools to teach survival skills...
...As an article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune noted, "Schools in Minnesota fly the DARE flag...
...The next exercise instructs children to check off whom they should inform if "asked to keep a secret""Police" is again listed as an option...
...a friend finds some pills...
...The idea that anyone should keep a secret from the proper authorities is apparently intolerable...
...i 49...
...D ARE's use of police officers as instructors has also come under attack...
...During...
...The official DARE Officer's Guide for Grades K-4 contains a worksheet that instructs children to "Circle 4 'I heard the police tellthe judge that I wantedmy mom and dadarrested...
...for social skills, four times greater than DARE...
...Schools sometimes pressure parents to administer Ritalin to hyperactive and allegedly hyperactive kids to make the children more docile in the classroom...
...A summary of the report was finally published by the American Journal of Public Health in September 1994 The RTI study found that DARE has been far less effective at discouraging drug abuse than have other "interactive" teaching methods...
...1 always thought police were honest and told the truth...
...However, at some point the absurdity of the conflicting policies must become self-evident: Ritalin is wonderful if taken with government sanction and terrible if taken without sanction...
...For example, nine-year old Darrin Davis of Douglasville, Georgia, called 911 after he found a small amount of speed hidden in his parents' bedroom, because, as he told a reporter: At school, they told us that if we ever see drugs, call Sir because people who use drugs need help...
...But if that is not the program's intention, surely it is a result of its propaganda materials...
...One of the DARE lessons that police give students in kindergarten through fourth grade emphasizes DARE's "Three R's": "Recognize, Resist, and Report...
...according to Jay Bouldin, the Davis' attorney, the strain caused by the bust played a major role in destroying their marriage...
...That is a lie.' I I the names of the people you could tell if...
...Darrin's parents later filed for a divorce...
...The police officer held me by the shoulder and made me watch them put handcuffs on my mom and dad and put them in the police car...
...DARE was found to be less effective in every category-knowledge and attitudes towards drugs, social skills, and drug use itself...
...Ritalin is being prescribed largely in response to an alleged epidemic ofAttention Deficit Disorder (ADD...
...his State of the Union address on January 23, the president pointed to his special guests seated in the balcony and declared, "People like these DARE officers are making a real impression on grade school children that will give them the strength to say no when the time comes...
...Justice Department, paid $300,000 to the Research Triangle Institute (RTI), a North Carolina research firm, to conduct an analysis of the effectiveness of DARE...
...Schools have cracked down on abusers, who could also face federal drug trafficking charges for passing around or selling their siblings' Ritalin prescriptions...
...Loughlin declared that the child's "right to a free appropriate education could not be premised on the condition that he be medicated without his parents' consent...
...But FDA deputy drug director Murray Lumpkin assured parents that "it's not enough of a signal that we think kids should be taken off the drug...
...on the other hand, the forced medication of school children is soaring...
...Students can buy DARE frisbees, wear a DARE wristwatch or sing the official DARE song...
...Federal, state, and local governments and private donors are spending roughly $700 million a year on DARE, which is currently being taught by police officers to more than 5 million children in more than 250,000 classrooms each year...
...THE PUBLIC POLICy by James Bovard Unsafe at Any Speed Turning kids into druggies and snitches...
...What is new about DARE is police coming into schools to teach attitudes and mental health...
...Across the country, school children line up outside of their principal's or nurse's offices at lunchtime in order to get another dose of Ritalin, an amphetamine-related ed stimulant that calms some children down...
...Overall, DARE was found to deter drug, alcohol, or tobacco use in only a statistically insignificant three percent of program participants...
...Politicians love it, of course, and none more so than Bill Clinton...
...It didn't say that in the video...
...These findings suggest that greater effectiveness is possible with school-based drug use prevention programs for fifth- and sixth-grade pupils than is achieved by the original DARE core curriculum...
...Although thousands of schools nationwide proudly post "DrugFree School Zone" signs outside their buildings, this hasn't kept them from simultaneously arranging to have kids routinely drugged for the teachers' benefit...
...The police serve as role models, trusted confidants, and wise men and women...
...There are DARE bears, DARE jeeps driven by police, and DARE bumper stickers as far as the eye can see...
...Potential side effects include "stunted growth, facial tics, agitation and aggression, insomnia, appetite loss, headaches, stomach pain and seizures...
...Not surprisingly, Ritalin is also being abused by students who do not have a prescription...
...In the official DARE Implementation Guide, police are advised to be alert for signs of children who have relatives who use drugs...
...I did not tell them that...
...has increased sixfold since 199oa faster rate of growth than for probably any illicit substance...
...Darrin became so agitated that he burnt down part of a neighbor's house because he said he wanted to be with his father in jail...
...Federal judge Martin Loughlin ruled that a New Hampshire school district had violated federal education law by prohibiting an eight-year old from attending school unless his parents agreed to drug him with Ritalin...
...Students are also able to win or purchase DARE pencils, erasers, workbooks, and certificates of achievement...
...I t is not unusual for different government programs to undercut each other, but current U.S...
...After police win the children's trust, children sometimes confide to the police 48 April 1996 • The American Spectator the names of people the children suspect are illegally using drugs...
...American parents face the worst of both worlds: lousy, self-defeating government drug education programs-and the massive doping of children with governmentapproved drugs, often at the behest of public school officials...
...drug policy is a case study in contradiction...
...Researchers concluded that "DARE's limited influence on adolescent drug behavior contrasts with the program's popularity and prevalence...
...JAMES BOVARD's most recent book is Shakedown: How Government Screws You From A to Z (Viking...
...According to the DEA, the amount of Ritalin produced and used in the U.S...
...On the one hand, schools are engaged in an all-out effort to discourage drug use...
...That is a lie...
...The federal Bureau of Justice Assistance, the research branch of the U.S...
...RTI researchers completed their report and submitted it to the Justice Department in February 1994-whereupon the Justice Department refused to publish it, the first report out of hundreds commissioned in recent years that the agency refused to print...
...DARE officials stress that the program does not encourage children to turn in family members for violating laws against drug use...
...the "Police" are listed along with "Mother or Father," "Teacher," or "Friend...
...DARE's minimal deterrence was achieved via discouraging the use of alcohol and tobacco, not illicit drugs...
...and for attitudes, three times greater...
...The parents complained that Ritalin made their son act like a "zombie...
...The DARE curriculum is taught by police primarily to fifth and sixth graders one hour a week for seventeen weeks, though children as young as kindergarten and as old as senior high school also receive DARE instruction...
...If the drug is crushed and snorted, it provides a quick high...
...Patrick Welsh, an Alexandria, Virginia, teacher, wrote in the Washington Post: "A former Fairfax teacher told me, only half joking, that most little boys in her elementary school were `either labeled gifted and talented, or on Ritalin...
...Come to think of it, that's also how they feel about gambling...
...As officers of the law, these DARE instructors are duty bound to follow up leads that might come to their attention through inadvertent or indiscreet comments by young children...
...Since 199o, the number of schoolchildren in Massachusetts receiving Ritalin has more than doubled...
...DARE in operation sometimes resembles a religious crusade...
...I thought the police would come get the drugs and tell them that drugs are wrong...
...Both parents lost their jobs, a bank threatened to foreclose on their home, and his father was kept in jail for three months...
...An estimated four million Americans, most of them children, are now on Ritalin...
...They never said they would arrest them...
...In January the Food and Drug Administration announced that a laboratory test showed that Ritalin can cause cancer in mice...
...Unfortunately, some police have had other things in mind...
Vol. 29 • April 1996 • No. 4
