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DARE Regional Director Ron Brogan Sets the Record Straight
The Amherst Record - October 2006
Regional Director Ron Brogan
It is always sad for us and the community when a D.A.R.E. program is lost, but I must admit it’s been a long time since I’ve seen some of the excuses used for cutting the programs in Amherst and Tonawanda. I would like to address some of them and hope you would give us equal time since D.A.R.E. America was never contacted for comment prior to publishing your article.
1. Less structured, updated and cheaper: The prestigious Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has, for the past five years, funded the largest study of it’s kind in prevention history. The purpose of this longitudinal study was to develop the gold standard in prevention programs to be delivered by the gold standard of delivery systems, i.e. D.A.R.E.
The program costs less than $1 per student. The new D.A.R.E. curricula is extremely flexible and adaptable to all communities.
2. Councilman Crangle should do his homework before declaring a program outdated. The new D.A.R.E. curricula is absolutely state of the art.
3. Having spent 27 years as a DEA agent, I am very aware that the best adage for drug prevention is: “pay me now or pay me later.” Substituting other “objectives” for the D.A.R.E. program is foolhardy. Drug enforcement and treatment cost many times more than prevention.
New programs from very progressive police departments come online everyday. For example, the city of Boston re-implemented the program recently as well as Baltimore and Jacksonville with numerous smaller cities.
2006 D.A.R.E. Fast Facts
The Numbers
• D.A.R.E. is in 75 percent of U.S. school districts and 54 foreign nations, as well as Department of Defense schools overseas.
• www.dare.org receives over 11 million hits per month and it has been confirmed there are more than 14,000 active D.A.R.E. officers as a result of the update training D.A.R.E. is doing.
• D.A.R.E. has trained and certified over 50,000 police officers.
• D.A.R.E. Works! According to the Monitoring the Future study, teen drug use is down more than 19 percent in the last four years.
• National Household Survey: Drug use in the U.S. peaked in 1979 at 26 million regular users. Current use is at 12 million regular users.
• The cost of a D.A.R.E. workbook is less than $1, while the cost of incarcerating a prisoner is between $25,000 and $40,000 per year.
New D.A.R.E.
• 10-week elementary curriculum and a 10-week middle school curriculum. A new 7-week high school curriculum is on the way.
• The University of Akron designed the middle and high school curricula. All curricula are science-based, age appropriate, reading level appropriate and written by a national panel of curriculum and prevention experts.
• D.A.R.E. Officer Training (DOT) is 80 hours and certifies the officer to teach both elementary and middle school in addition to providing the necessary training for the officer to perform as a School Resource Officer (SRO).
• D.A.R.E. also created an abbreviated 40-hour course for current SROs to be certified to teach D.A.R.E. middle school.
The Research and Science
• 18 studies since 1997 show D.A.R.E. works, including the National Medical Association study showing D.A.R.E. graduates are five times less likely to start smoking than non-D.A.R.E. graduates.
• The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is currently conducting a five-year study involving over 19,000 students from 83 high schools and 122 middle schools. Results are very positive.
• More students decided against using drugs.
• More students found drug use socially inappropriate and believed fewer peers used drugs.
• Fewer students reported intent to use inhalants.
• More students learned how to refuse drugs.
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