Drug Education: Just Say Choose
                           Rick Branch

With New Age philosophy ever creeping into the American school
system, it is not surprising that drug use is also increasing. The
key element in most of the New Age/affective curriculum, such as
Pumsey the Dragon, DUSO the Dolphin, Project Charlie, Quest and
even to a minor extent DARE, is to allow the students to choose for
themselves whether or not to take drugs.

In the Quest material students are to "Identify reasons for the use
and non-use of marijuana." A few pages later, its states, "Identify
reasons for the use and non-use of cocaine and crack" (Skills for
Adolescence, Section VI, pp. 56 and 70). Should students be
encouraged to think of reasons for the use of drugs?

Concerning Project Charlie, the Arlington Citizen-Journal stated,
"Project Charlie approaches drug abuse prevention from a
perspective other than telling kids what they shouldn't do" (29
July 1990, p. 4A). This is apparently true, for the curriculum
explains that teachers should not instruct the students by
"Advising, Providing Answers or Solutions." Would this include
questions on drug use?

If so, how then are the teachers of Project Charlie to help
students make difficult decisions (e.g. drug decisions)? Under the
heading Decision-Making, the curriculum instructs the teachers with
this advice, "As children ask questions, tell them to use their own
judgement, as you do not know any more than they do" (pp. 282,
315). Should parents believe that in the years of college the
teachers have finished that they still do not know any more about
life and life's situations than the elementary student?

With reference to DUSO, Mike Ricketts of the San Diego, Californian
explained DUSO "...encourages a child to explore his inner self, to
relax by meditation, and to acquire fantasy companions to help
guide him through life's stresses." Ricketts went on to say, "Most
critically, feelings are esteemed over facts. There are no absolute
values in DUSO, no definitive right and wrong" (28 March 1991).

Ricketts' evaluation is absolutely correct, for the DUSO-1
Teacher's Guide states, "As teachers become more skilled in
affective education, their relationships with children improve, and
children become more involved in the learning process. The
classroom teacher is in the best position to be the affective
educator" (p. 28).

What is affective education? It is the idea that there are no
absolutes, that the student has the right to choose what is right
and wrong for themselves.

Tim Henz, head DARE officer for the Arlington, Texas school
district said, "the curriculum never directly states that drugs are
wrong, but (t)he instructors emphasize that message" (Fort Worth
Star-Telegram, 27 December 1993, p. A-11). Since the curriculum
never explains that drugs are wrong, why is it being used as a
basis for drug education?

In his article, "School-Based Drug Education: What Is Wrong",
Michael Goodstadt, head of the Education Research Program and
Addiction Research Foundation, explains "Drug education programs
have failed to make the necessary links between the reality of the
classroom and the reality outside the classroom.

Goodstadt says, "Reviews of the effectiveness of school-based drug
education have consistently concluded that little evidence exists
about the effectiveness of drug education in North America; that
most drug education evaluations have been methodologically
inadequate; and that findings have been too inconsistent and
negative to be directly helpful in developing further programming"
(The Education Digest, February 1987, pp. 44-45).

Goodstadt's warning that the school-based drug programs have had
negative results has again come to fruition in 1993.

"The annual survey of nearly 50,000 eighth-, 10th- and 12th-grade
students nationwide found that 13- and 14-year-olds reported
`modest but statistically significant' increases from 1991 and 1992
in the use of marijuana, cocaine, crack, LSD, and other
hallucinogens, stimulants and inhalants. The survey also found that
the use of LSD among high school seniors last year reached its
highest level since 1985" (Dallas Morning News, 14 April 1993, p.
5-A).

What has caused these increases? Perhaps the students are simply
making choices as they have been taught in the school-based drug
education programs.