It was the early 1990's, and I was in the fifth grade when a police officer cornered me at school and asked if I wanted to get high. Now, to be fair we were only acting out a scenario during a demonstration for the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, and he asked all of the other kids if they wanted to smoke crack with him as well. After Nixon declared war on drugs, something needed to be done to encourage future generations to avoid the sad path of addiction. The official D.A.R.E. website states that it began in Los Angeles. Police Chief Daryl Gates and the Los Angeles Unified School District put it together in 1983 after drug use among adolescents skyrocketed. Since the program was one of a kind, it isn't surprising how quickly D.A.R.E. …show more content…
was following right behind by accomplishing the opposite of what it was intended to do. The program exposed juveniles to drugs and made them more curious. Don't you think that someone teaching a 10-year-old how much pot they can get for $20, or educating them on how to prepare a syringe of heroin before plunging the needle into a vein is a little too much? As stated by Barnett in "Does D.A.R.E. work?" 75% of students in America go through the D.A.R.E. program, but in 1996-1997 juvenile drug use still rose, and 25% of high school students reporting monthly admitted to the use of illegal drugs. Wouldn't you like to know who is paying for this program? I do. As noted by Jonathan Riskind, "Neither the government officials who hand out the money nor DARE executives themselves can put a definitive price tag on it, but estimates from several independent experts range from $1 billion to more than $2 billion annually." D.A.R.E. is funded by local, state, and federal tax money, now, I know it's impossible to put a price tag on the future of our children, but why would we spend such an astronomical amount of money on something that might not really be …show more content…
program doesn't work. A few years ago they decided to try and change the curriculum. D.A.R.E. was reborn, as highlighted by Nordrum, "the “keepin’ it REAL” substance-abuse curriculum focuses on elementary and middle-school students’ decisions, not drugs." Behavioral scientists called for lessons that were more hands on, and they selected Keepin' it REAL from a national registry of programs with results that were backed up by science. REAL is an acronym officers use to teach four different ways to say no: Refuse, Explain, Avoid, and Leave. Evidently, studies are showing promising
A positive drug test can be treated as a violation of probation. Judges can also require individual offenders to pay for their own drug testing, as they do now in the "drug court" system, if they can afford it. The cost of a test can be $4 to $7 per test. The fact is, tens of millions of dollars in state and federal funds already go to drug testing of criminal offenders through the court system and probation system. If more money is needed, this can easily be appropriated from the hundreds of millions of dollars saved each year by this initiative.
The D.A.R.E program offers great information, but it also costs a significant amount of money to run the program each year. The children receiving this anti-drug information, are at a young age and do not understand how severe drugs are and how it can impair a person’s judgment. At age 10, children may obtain a basic understanding of drugs and alcohol at the end of this program, but by the time they reach high school, they will not be able apply what they have learned from the D.A.R.E program.
While the War on Drugs may have been portrayed as a colorblind movement, Nixon’s presidency and reasoning for its implementation solidifies that it was not. Nixon coined the term “War on Drugs” in his 1971 anti-drug campaign speech, starting the beginning of an era. He voiced, “If there is one area where the word ‘war’ is appropriate, it is in the fights against crime” (DuVernay, 13th). This terminology solidified to the public that drug abusers were an enemy, and if the greatest publicized abusers were black, then black people were then enemy. This “war” started by Nixon claimed it would rid the nation of dealers, but in fact, 4/5 of arrests were for possession only (Alexander, 60). Nixon employed many tactics in order to advance the progress
Have you ever questioned the tax taken out of your hard-earned money? Questions similar to that are where the money is going and if it is being used properly. In the U.S. news recently those questions have been on a great deal of State’s minds; reaching back to 2003, this issue has been brought up time and time again. The main topic of tax money is the use of assistance money and are the recipients really using the money for the right reasons. There are many problems with the assistance program but the one that comes to mind the most is that many people abuse the money given to buy the essentials and provide, for their family for illegal drugs. The solution that many state representatives have come up with is drug testing as a requirement for assistance. This will eliminate the abuse of the assistance program; also it will cut down the cost of assistance which is very expensive as a whole.
It cost a lot of money to keep one prisoner taken care of with food, medical, and housing. Instead of using that tax money on a prisoner, if that funding were to go to an after school program it would be more beneficiary. More programs for schools lead to children having an activity to do after school instead of getting into some sort of mischief and then getting a criminal record which then produces a vicious cycle of criminal behavior. That criminal cycle will then continue and add to the already overpopulated prison system. The goal here it prevent the blooming of a possible juvenile delinquent into a convicted criminal it before it even starts. So using the tax money that would 've been used on a low level convict who got busted for marijuana lets say, would be used to help prevent future convict to begin with. Not only school programs, but even things that would help improve communities such as parks, job creations, etc. All these things could also help prevent future prisoners because parks are used for activity for children to gather and socialize instead of getting to criminal mischief and job creations are used to prevent being in poverty which is retrospect is one of the main reason people end up in criminal activity. So all in all as you can see, there would be so much benefits in using tax money from a low level convict to the future of our
We cannot afford to keep using the same approach in hopes of diminishing our drug problem in the United States. In a study posted on RAND.org, the author Jonathan P. Caulkins compares many methods we can use to help with drug crime. The first graph compares federal mandatory minimum sentences, conventional enforcement at all levels of government, and treatment of heavy users. Conventional enforcement prevented around thirty kilo grams of cocaine from being used, while federal mandatory minimums prevented around forty kilograms from being used. Treatment of heavy users blew both of the other methods out of the water.
The war on drugs began with the presidential term of President Nixon in the 1970s. According to drugpolicy.org, “He dramatically increased the size and presence of federal drug control agencies, and pushed through measures such as mandatory sentencing and no-knock warrants. Nixon temporarily placed marijuana in Schedule One, the most restrictive category of drugs.”
The biggest question people ask is if the “war on drugs” was successful. According to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), “The goals of the program are to reduce illicit drug use, manufacturing and trafficking, drug-related crime and violence, and drug-related health consequences.” The best way to measure the effectiveness of the “war on drugs” is to focus on these basic questions; Is drug use down? Is crime down? and Are drugs less available? Since 1988, drug use by individuals ages 12 and over has remained stable according to the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA). The number of individuals reporting any drug use has increased by approximately 7 million and the number of those who reported drug use in previous months or previous years has remained unchanged. The Organization Monitoring the Future studies drug use, access to drugs, and perspectives towards drugs of junior and senior high school students nationwide. Results of a study conducted in 2005 showed a minor decline in substance abuse by older teens, but drug use among eighth graders stopped remained the same. However, the changes were not statistically significant and ultimately there was no reduction in substance abuse among young students. Crime in the United States has decreased significantly since 1993, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. On the other hand,
By implementing such a program, the American population can use its money and resources to combat the problem through the legal system. Legalization will decrease violent crime associated with drug dealers, it will decrease the number of users and will lower the wasteful cost associated with the current system. Such legalization will not destroy our youth in any way and will only be accessible to adults in the country. If we continue with our current system, we will never solve the problem. Drug dealers and addicts will crown our prisons and plague our streets.
The history of drug use dates back to the 19th century during the US Civil War. This saw a number of policies being introduced and by the year 1898, heroine was inaccessible. The next drugs that were targeted were alcohol and by the year 1906, the US Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act (PFDA) to help stop the use of such drugs. The next drug that was targeted was opium and an act was passed in 1909 to ban...
By taking the necessary steps to create these prevention programs we can drastically lower the amount of people who are affected by this disease and continue to help those who are already in need. First, I argue that we can do this by expanding and improving drug education in the public education system. One of the most widespread drug education programs for grade level schools, Drug Abuse Resistance Education, known as DARE or the “just say no” program created by Nancy Reagan is still being used in today (Friedman). Unfortunately, this program proved to be ineffective with research showing that students who participated in the program were just as likely to use drugs as those who did not participate. While researchers are still debating over kind of disease addiction is they believe that it could genetic or psychological, which could open up the door for specialized drug education prevention programs (Katel, Friedman). For example, if we know that those who are at a higher risk for drug addiction carry certain traits in their DNA or show other psychological signs then we can test for these characteristics early on and create a program that is specifically targeted to help those specific individuals. Not only would a drug education program like the example that I provided be more
...substance abuse must continue, and it is imperative that more teens are educated about different substances and their effects on physical, mental appearances. More educational classes are now needed because of the risk of losing an entire generation to the streets and world of drugs and alcohol. The slow but sure takeover of drugs and alcohol is a problem than can be obtained if proper precautions are put into place. If we, as America’s team, act now to stop to the spread of meth, alcohol, and other fast increasing substances, there will be hope for America’s future.
In D.A.R.E., the drug education program children are taught up until they enter high school, they always tell you to “Just Say No”, but I bet they have no clue what goes through the mind of naive teenagers who see all of their peers having a “great time” while they try to be the good kid and refuse.
Masci, David. “Preventing Teen Drug Use.” CQ Researcher, 15 March, 2002, Volume 12, No. 10. Accessed October 1, 2003,
The "War on Drugs" Palo Alto: Mayfield, 1986. Kennedy, X.J., Dorothy M. Kennedy, and Jane E. Aaron, eds. The Bedford Reader. 6th ed. of the book.