Posted on 03/08/2004 8:41:04 AM PST by chance33_98
DARE drug program could be dropped without proof of effectiveness
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) -- Drug abuse prevention programs such as DARE could be on their way out of Alabama classrooms if they can't prove that they are effective, drug treatment experts said.
Federal, state and local governments have poured millions of dollars over the last decade into Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or DARE, a program that puts police into elementary school classrooms to encourage students not to use drugs.
But federal and state spending on DARE - whose license tags reading "DARE to keep kids off drugs" often are seen on police and parents' vehicles - already is on the way out, said Kent Hunt, associate commissioner for substance abuse at the Alabama Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation.
"I see a movement away from that unless DARE can modify their curriculum and get a stamp of approval as an evidence-based or science-based program, and it's not there yet," Hunt said at a Friday meeting organized by the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Numerous Alabama school systems still use DARE, even though the federal government has advised systems to drop the program.
The No Child Left Behind Act requires states to spend money only on programs that can prove their effectiveness. DARE is revising its curriculum but still has not received federal approval, said Kris Vilamaa, program manager for law enforcement and traffic safety at the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs.
Judge Karen Freeman Wilson, executive director of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals, attended the meeting and suggested courts emphasizing rehabilitation for drug offenders, rather than prison time, could help more people. There are 11 such drug courts in Alabama.
"The utopia is for us to infuse the drug court philosophy and the way of doing business into the criminal justice system," Freeman Wilson said.
Family court judges from Huntsville and Birmingham said the state has too few alternatives to prison. They said they are forced to send children to faraway programs or lock them in juvenile jails because there are not enough local treatment options.
"We're forcing our state juvenile justice system to deal with a problem they shouldn't have to deal with," said Randy Johnson, deputy court administrator for Jefferson County Family Court.
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If they don't even have a competent staff (and any competent staff could have told them that this is a slam-dunk case of protected free speech, or found a lawyer who would have told them so, within an hour), how can they possibly be effective at anything?
Does this mean the end of the Head Start program? Yeah, right.
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