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Wallace: DARE Program Promotes Rather Than Decreases Drug Use

DRUG EDUCATION

April 1993

The popular Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program that employs uniformed police officers to teach children the dangers of drugs, may actually increase drug use, according to studies cited by National Drug Strategy Network participant Steve Wallace in his monthly "Just Say Know" column in a Chapel Hill, North Carolina newspaper (Steve Wallace, "Studies Show DARE Program Promotes Children's Drug Use," The Chapel Hill Herald, 3/25/93, p. 4).

Wallace has steadily challenged the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction about DARE. A reply from the department's chief consultant on anti-drug education conceded that there was no firm evidence that DARE decreased subsequent drug use. A copy of the reply was sent to Gov. James B. Hunt, Jr., State Superintendent Bob Etheridge, and all school superintendents statewide. According to Wallace, there has been no change in statewide use of DARE.