The dictionary defines “education” as the “act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life.” With that in mind, I am not sure how the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program has been able to keep the “E” in its name.
The “general knowledge” the group imparts upon the public is based far more on myths and scare tactics than on factual evidence. The organization certainly does not encourage reasoning and judgment, instead relying on the students of the program to take everything presented to them at face value without even considering contrary scientific evidence.
Nothing makes this farce clearer than DARE Chairman Skip Miller’s Jan. 28 column in the Los Angeles times titled, “Don’t Legalize Marijuana.” In the column, Mr. Miller makes several claims about the psychoactive drug, which have been hotly contested by both scientific and legal authorities, as if they were authoritative facts.
While it is important to educate children about the dangers of drug use, the education should give an honest and balanced perspective as opposed to a presentation of unverified claims. The first claim Mr. Miller makes in the article is that legalization of marijuana in California would “almost certainly would bring with it additional substance abuse in the state.” There is much evidence to the contrary of that statement.
According to the former Surgeon General Joyce Elders, marijuana use among teens actually dropped by more than 40 percent in the five years following the legalization of medical marijuana in California in 1996.
Furthermore, when Portugal instituted a full-scale decriminalization of all drugs in the early 2000s, not only did aggregate drug use not increase, but there was an increase in people seeking treatment for their drug problems. The majority of 12th graders surveyed by the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Bethesda, Md., reported that legalization of marijuana would have very little impact on their personal habits regarding the drug.
A version of this article appeared in the Feb 10 issue of the Collegiate Times.
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Very well-written article. I can see you did a lot of research on this issue. I just sent you a facebook message requesting to meet. I met with Byron Hughes today in Student Conduct about the current policy, and I expressed how I believe the current policy should be changed. If you do want to meet, send me an e-mail at brandoncarroll@vt.edu.
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This is a letter from "students" but was only signed by Mark Goldstein. Did other students sign the letter?
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Students for Sensible Drug Policy is an organization here at Virginia Tech. I believe the author was writing the article on behalf of the organization.
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Unfortunately this article has one (among several) glaring inaccuracies one of which is that: "Mr. Miller makes several claims about the psychoactive drug, which have been hotly contested by both scientific and legal authorities, as if they were authoritative facts." There is growing scientific data that finds that there IS a connection between marijuana and schizophrenia. For a couple of examples see these sites:
http://www.schizophrenia.com/prevention/streetdrugs.html#can
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vanessa-richmond/documentary-links-marijua_b_439595.html
In addition, I have personal experience that the link is a strong possibility with my son who has schizophrenia and marijuana use has shown to exacerbate his symptoms, even when he continues to take anti-psychotic meds.
Why on earth would society want to completely legalize a substance that could create such devastating consequences? I believe that THC may (it's not been sufficiently studied) have beneficial attributes for a small minority of individuals with serious illnesses. What we need to do is de-classify marijuana on the Federal drug list and start doing MORE scientific studies on it's positive and negative side effects.
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I never made the claim in the article that marijuana was completely harmless. I was making the point that the "facts" that the DARE chairman provided in the article were disputed by very prominent authorities (most of which come from the US Government). The point of my article was to demonstrate how programs like D.A.R.E. do not base their claims in credible scientific research, yet they claim they do. I agree with you that more research should be done as to the potential effects of the drug, but the education regarding it should state which claims are highly verified and which ones are not (and the underlying reasons why the data may be faulty). I support honest drug education; not scare tactics.
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Indeed, the most educational experience I had as a result from DARE was learning, several years after the fact, that their agenda consisted largely of a collection of myths and propaganda. Fear tactics and lies may be effective at scaring more credulous kids into avoiding drug use, but that's more akin to indoctrination than education.
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Having instigated and participated in many arguments in regard to DARE's ineffectiveness on our government's prevention listserv, I can say that you may be surprised how many folks working in the field of drug prevention agree with Mark's arguments. The problem that keeps them from being heard is fourfold. One, grant money for drug prevention flows from only a couple sources, mainly one, and it doesn't so much flow as it does trickle given that two-thirds of our drug budget continues to be spent on supply tactic drug enforcement. When control over funding is monopolized to that extent, innovation is stifled and DARE's lobbyists win. Two, many people working in drug prevention are unwilling to denounce DARE and other failed drug war policies even if it keeps their own smaller and often more effective organizations down. Third, DARE has a name-brand. Fourth, admitting DARE is a failure automatically admits an injustice on a generation of youth we weren't willing to educate but certainly willing to lock up over drugs.
A rational discussion over how to best limit the public exposure of marijuana to the small schizophrenic population and to children is as necessary a discussion as one over the cruelty and stigma of felony charges for drug offenses.
Kudos to Mark for speaking sense on a topic that has our representatives giggling like children while other states point their fingers and call us "backwards."
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* ...limit the public exposure of marijuana from the small schizophrenic population and from children...
Sorry, promise that wasn't a Freudian Slip.
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