JUST SAY NO' TO DARE PROGRAM

I feel obligated to write this letter because I am a product of the "Drug Abuse Resistance Education" ( DARE ) generation and am concerned about the impact or lack thereof, that this educational program has had.

In a six-year study of 1,798 students, Dr.  Dennis Rosenbaum, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, found that DARE does not "prevent drug use at the stage in adolescent development when drugs become available and are widely used, namely during the high school years.  DARE may actually be counter productive.

The 1999 video entitled, "Lets Talk: A video for Adults about Teens and Drug Education," states: American teenagers in the '90s had more drug education than any generation in history.

The majority were exposed to DARE in school and all had been exposed to "just-say-no" public education messages.  Yet, American teens in the '90s used more drugs than teens a decade earlier.

DARE's scare tactics and misinformation are inappropriate and unjust.  Honesty should be the doctrine of a program dedicated to protecting our children.

DARE has been implemented as an abstinence-only drug education program.  In today's society this is neither logical nor possible.  The first step to drug education should be admitting that drugs are prevalent in society, and will directly affect our youth.  Thus, we should move forward to a harm-reduction policy that promotes unbiased drug education.

The just say no approach has failed.  It is time for concerned citizens of this community to just say know, and to develop a drug-education program that really does protect our children.

Dan Rosenkrantz

New London