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PROGRAMMING FACISM:
THE DRUG WAR ON OUR CHILDREN

(INTRODEK)
You may think your children are being protected
from the world of drug abuse by programs like
STRAIGHT and D.A.R.E., and ad campaigns like those
created by the Partnership for a Drug Free America.
But who's backing those programs, what are they
really teaching, and what are they really
accomplishing?

by Leslie Stackel

On a sunny morning in June 1983, high-school
sophomore Richard Bradbury drove 30 miles to visit
his sister in a St. Petersburg, Florida drug
rehabilitation center.
Their reunion would be the first since her
admission, so Richard would have to be
"interviewed," making certain no pro-drug
conversation would pass his lips.
No problem, Richard thought.
Mr. Bradbury, Richard's father and traveling
companion, would wait in another room.
But Richard's five-minute "interview" quickly
turned into an intake procedure. Escorted down the
hall to a windowless, concrete box of a room, he
was promptly told by a staffer that his
"evaluation" was negative. His skinny, teenaged
interviewer had come to an instant diagnosis:
Richard was at risk as a drug user. He'd have to be
detained for treatment.
"This is a joke, right?" Richard asked. "I'm just
here to see my sister. Besides, I've tried
marijuana a couple of times, but I'm no user."
Within minutes, the door was sealed shut. Richard
could not leave the room, speak with his father, or
make a phone call. Later, a team of staff members
transferred Richard to a "host" home, strip-
searched him, and locked him in. Thus began an 18-
month-long nightmare of abduction, abuse and
emotional terrorism. Richard's dad, like many
parents targeted by the costly rehab program known
as STRAIGHT, had been convinced on the spot by a
savvy marketing pitch of its merits and his son's
dangerous inclination toward drugs. STRAIGHT, its
promoters told him, would protect Richard, "cure"
him.
Halfway across the country, meanwhile, in
northern Maine, another disturbing event was
occurring. Fifth-grader Crystal Grendell one day
after school decided to stop by the local police
station and tell Chief Officer Gillmore of two
people she knew who were growing pot --her parents.
Three days later, the Grendells' home was
searched, and both parents promptly arrested.
Crystal's mom lost her two part-time jobs, and
Crystal developed a neurotic fear of police,
admitting later she could no longer trust "any
adults except my parents."
What prompted Crystal to inform on her parents
was a nationwide program called D.A.R.E.--Drug Abuse
Resistance Education--taught by uniformed cops to
students in public school classrooms from
kindergarten through 12th grade. D.A.R.E., a $700
million program developed under the direction of
former Los Angeles Chief of Police Daryl Gates,
intends to "keep kids off drugs." But instruction
by police often means asking children who they know
who use drugs. Marijuana and other substances are
very harmful, kids are told, and they can help
people who take them. Crystal wanted to help her
parents. She trusted Officer Gillmore. He was her
teacher. Crystal, in the end, was more than
betrayed. She was emotionally traumatized and, no
doubt, scarred for life.
What both events, occurring in two separate
regions of the country and nearly a decade apart,
have in common is that they reflect the fallout of
the Drug War on our youth. Manipulative "Just Say
No" policies, inherited by a new administration,
seem to be taking programs for kids a step beyond
mere education and treatment; they've entered a
realm akin to indoctrination and mind control.
Which has some parents worried. They object to
their kids being continually dosed with anti-drug
curricula in classrooms and turned into miniature
drug warriors, or abused in treatment detention
camps for being out of synch with a government-
mandated attitude about certain controlled
substances.
So parents are organizing, forming groups to do
battle for their kids. Some view their newfound
activism as perhaps the first major populist
counter-assault in a Drug War gone too far.
Ever since the mid-'80S when the Reagan-Bush Drug
War coffers reached upwards of $20 billion and drug
ed and treatment programs became a multi-billion
dollar industry, the wear and tear on our nation's
children began to show. Hordes of packaged drug ed
programs, with names like ALERT, STAR and Project
SMART, began to turn up in public schools. Over the
next few years they proliferated. But among the
dozens of acronymic "alphabet soup" nonprofits (as
another reporter recently dubbed them), one stood
out in highly publicized, sharp relief. That is
D.A.R.E. As the largest, costliest and favorite of
the feds, D.A.R.E. has spread to cities across the
country with rapid-fire speed. Part of the reason
was money--lots of it.
D.A.R.E. has the dubious distinction of being the
sole anti-drug ed program actually legislated into
popularity. When Congress passed the Drug Free
Schools and Community Act of 1986, one provision
ordered that 10% of state grants to governors go
toward curricula that are specifically "taught in
classrooms by uniformed police officers." Only one
national program fit that description: D.A.R.E.
Thus, last year, D.A.R.E. America, the national
coordinator for the program, received about $10
million for training and paying cops as class
instructors and building community relations--i.e.,
advertising. Additional funding sources came from
city monies, corporate and private donations, and
property seized in drug asset forfeiture. What has
resulted is a promotional phenomenon not witnessed
in recent educational history, a pro-D.A.R.E.
marketing campaign pursued with Perotlike zeal, and
a nationwide onslaught of D.A.R.E.-think in our
public schools.
Gary Peterson, the Colorado-based founder of
Parents Against D.A.R.E., sees this as dangerous.
Students from kindergarten on up get D.A.R.E.-
dosed, but the program's core concentration group,
fifth- and sixth-graders, receive 17 full-hour
lessons, one per week, explains Peterson. And
"you'll find the program content not only in
D.A.R.E. coursework, but in other subject areas,
like math or spelling. D.A.R.E. has included in its
Implementation Guide an agreement to be signed by
each local school district, establishing the right
to inject D.A.R.E. material in other subjects. So
all over the country kids are living and breathing
D.A.R.E. And when the officer's not around, they're
still sharing about D.A.R.E. They're still spelling
D.A.R.E. They're reading D.A.R.E. They're saying
D.A.R.E."
Peterson believes the program ought be abolished
altogether. The course material, methods of
delivery and, in fact, basic philosophical premise
of the program is seriously flawed, he claims.
For one thing, says Peterson, the "facts" taught
by police are incomplete and often incorrect. In
one parent meeting on D.A.R.E., for example, an
officer warned that "marijuana was the cause of a
lot of family dysfunction, that it could lead to
permanent brain damage and could kill." Peterson,
holding up the Merck Manual medical text, corrected
him, reading "verbatim from it that marijuana was
not toxic," adding, "nowhere did the text say it
was a killer."
Secondly, he adds, D.A.R.E. sends kids the wrong
message. It's based on psychotherapeutic--not
educational--theory, which has since been
discredited by its own creator, humanist
psychologist Carl Rogers.
Founded on Rogers' "therapeutic classroom" model,
the program's aim is to "empower" kids, through
information and skill-building, to enable them to
make autonomous choices and resist peer pressure to
do drugs or join gangs.
Police instructors, who receive 80 hours of
training, use lectures and clinical techniques such
as role-playing to communicate their message. In
the training, certain guidelines are set down.
Among them: "1) Don't tell kids not to use drugs
outright, offer them autonomy; tell them the choice
to use or not is theirs alone. 2) Build an
atmosphere of openness and trust. Make the kids
feel unjudged. Be their friend. 3) Tell kids to be
aware of people who do drugs, but not to name
names. (Refer any tips to the police department;
don't jeopardize your own position of trusted
teacher.)"
Sound oddly Orwellian?
In fact, some critics fear D.A.R.E. may do more
harm than good.
Police Chief Nicholas Pastore of New Haven, CT,
points out the problem of duplicity: "It's
difficult for kids to comprehend a message coming
in the morning from Mr. Rogers who's the same
person that turns into Rambo at night." Pastore
dismantled D.A.R.E. immediately upon assuming his
current post four years ago, opting instead for
more "holistic prevention education" which puts the
drug issue "in a broader context."
Better programs than D.A.R.E. exist: certain
"interactive" ventures, studies show, such as
Botsan Life Skills for example--in which kids mix
with classmates in small discussion groups around
drug-related or other topics. D.A.R.E. falls into
the type two, "noninteractive," less effective
category, in which activities may be experiential,
but don't have students dealing with each other
directly, according to Nancy Tobler, an educator
and PhD candidate at the State University at
Albany. Changing kids' perceptions of social norms
outside the classroom, which may be skewed, is one
goal of such interaction.
"The perception of a kid may be that drugs are
used by sixty percent of the population, for
example, when it's, say twenty percent But, after
knowing the truth, he or she may decide maybe it's
OK not to do drugs and still be cool," explains
Tobler. Her own research, presented at a California
conference on prevention last summer revealed that
of 114 drug ed programs, more than 70 scored higher
than D.A.R.E.
Critics believe not only do D.A.R.E.-like
programs siphon money from better alternatives, but
may spur rather than curb drug use in the long run.
Dr. William Coulson, research director of the
Institute of Ethnopsychology in Compthche,
California and a long-time, close associate of
Rogers, spends much time proselytizing against
D.A.R.E. and other Rogerian educational clones,
like Quest, Here's Looking At You, and Values and
Choices. Rogers, he says, denounced his
"therapeutic classroom" as a total failure before
he died in 1987. Rogers concluded that children
should not be "empowered" via "nondirective
therapy" in classes to make critical life
decisions. Kids need more guidance than adults. And
Rogers worried that once "empowered," they may make
the wrong choices later on. His fears were borne
out by an early predecessor of D.A.R.E.'s, Project
DECIDE, tested by Stanford University. Kids in
DECIDE, compared to a control group, it turned out,
indulged in drugs sooner or upped their usage after
the program. A second trial in 1978 mirrored those
findings. Nonetheless, Rogers' model caught on in
education circles. And Coulson today continues
trying to undo the original damage.
Whether these programs survive the decade will
depend largely on scientific data. And so far the
results are mixed. For example, D.A.R.E.'s own
research shows there's no proof that D.A.R.E.
prevents drug use, but it does help students in
terms of knowledge and attitude about drugs and the
social skills needed to resist peer pressure. Such
were the findings in a preliminary report issued by
the Research Triangle Institute of Durham, North
Carolina, hired by D.A.R.E. to cumulatively analyze
a spate of small, independent, regional studies of
the program. Critics, though, noting that more
teenagers are now doing drugs (mainly marijuana and
hallucinogens) than a year ago, point blame at
D.A.R.E.-type programs. Two studies are cited as
evidence: a PRIDE (Parents Resource Institute for
Drug Education) survey of more than 236,000
students in 40 states-- revealing that junior and
senior high school student usage levels increased
or remained status quo--plus a NIDA (National
Institute of Drug Abuse) report reflecting a hike
in use among, specifically, eighth graders.
Because D.A.R.E., the most widespread of ed
ventures, concentrates so heavily on fifth and
sixth graders, observers consider these stats
significant, given Rogers' prediction; a sign that
D.A.R.E.'s not doing the job--or worse, reversing
the odds in favor of drug use.
The federal government, though, is not yet
convinced. William Modzeleski, the top drug
official at the Department of Education was quoted
in a USA Today article last October as saying that
"research shows that, no, D.A.R.E. hasn't been
effective in reducing drug use." His public
relations spokesman later added: "We need a
comprehensive set of programs. Along with these,
D.A.R.E. would be OK, but by itself, it wouldn't do
the job." The department has considered asking
Congress to repeal the law requiring states to give
D.A.R.E. federal money. But so far, no such action
has been taken. A number of governors have,
however, already requested that the D.A.R.E.
requirement be stricken from state allocation
guidelines.
Meanwhile, during "National D.A.R.E. Day"
celebrations last September dozens of Congressmen
turned out for a high-visibility photo-op; also
noticeably present were Attorney General Janet Reno
and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Diehard program boosters all the while counter
any D.A.R.E.-bashing by pointing to the "enormous
popularity of the program."
And D.A.R.E. America continues to deride current
study data, including RTI's, as "inconclusive,"
insisting that what's really needed to measure the
program's success is an original, long-term,
longitudinal evaluation, which, incidentally, is
expected "to happen very soon, and by an
independent organization." Moreover, a curriculum
revision is underway. (Cops in classrooms, though,
will remain a fixed element, notes a D.A.R.E.
spokeswoman. The "snitch" factor is negligible; of
"twenty-five million kids in D.A.R.E., only a
handful of cases like that have occurred. And when
a child reports a dangerous situation at home, we
applaud teachers (who)...report it to the proper
authorities." Even, apparently, when a child like
Crystal Grendell is traumatized in the process.)
Glenn Levant, D.A.R.E.'s executive director,
wasn't available for comment, but spokeswoman
Roberta Silverman emphasizes that in a national
Gallup poll of D.A.R.E. students, "more than ninety
percent said D.A.R.E. has 'taught me what to do
when someone's trying to make me do something I
don't want to.'"
D.A.R.E.'s popularity among kids is inevitable,
say activists like Steve Wallace of Durham, North
Carolina, who belongs to a loose, bi-partisan
coalition of parents that includes liberals,
libertarians and right-wingers the likes of Phyllis
Schafly, who oppose D.A.R.E.
"There's DARE Day in school, and the nice
officers regularly hand out t-shirts and wrist
watches, bumper stickers, notebooks, and other
assorted program reminders featuring the DARE logo.
And there are parades with colorful banners waving
and big DAREmobiles. The students see the DARE logo
plastered everywhere. It's insidious," says
Wallace, "but gimmicks don't prevent substance
abuse."
William Hansen, a researcher at the Bowman Gray
School of Public Health in Winston-Salem and an
early consultant for the program who later defected
from D.A.R.E., concedes that "this is something
police can use to build community relations. It's
not a bust 'em and get 'em program." But, he adds,
"however well-intentioned, D.A.R.E. is not doing
the job, it's not preventing drug use."
Meanwhile, all the controversy surrounding
D.A.R.E. has led to a barrage of negative
publicity.
First, the Wall Street Journal covered the
Grendell case in 1991, reporting that "D.A.R.E. has
pitted students against their parents in a handful
of cases." National TV shows, including Larry King
Live and 60 Minutes also aired D.A.R.E. segments.
Then, last season, TV's L.A. Law dramatized the
Grendell incident in an episode. Finally, a USA
Today cover article last October blasted D.A.R.E.
The headline read: "Studies Find Drug Program Not
Effective."
One wonders, if D.A.R.E.like programs are so bad,
why are they thriving?
"Packaging," explains Tobler. Late '70s and early
'80s anti-drug curricula, some based on Rogers'
experiment, "were written to be duplicated and make
money." No genuine effort went into evaluating
these programs before use, she says. But they were
glossily packaged. The newer, interactive programs,
which "spent a lot of time on testing and research,
were slower to package. Very few of these (many
backed by NIDA) are set up for reproduction."
The net effect? "Teachers look at programs like
D.A.R.E., see they're well-written and well-
packaged and think, 'this should keep the students
interested.'"
D.A.R.E.'s plan to deflect criticism has also
helped keep public opinion positive. According to
Madeline Webster, a civil-liberties activist in
Massachusetts, parents initially weren't permitted
access to D.A.R.E. school materials. Peterson says
he had to sue in Colorado under the federal Hatch
Act to establish their right to examine curriculum
information and instructors' manuals. Parents were
also told by D.A.R.E. cops the lessons were
mandatory when, in fact, their permission is
required for student participation. Parents who
complained or doubted or probed into D.A.R.E. were
often verbally attacked or slandered. Scientific
researchers critical of the program's content or
operation were also angrily rebuffed by D.A.R.E.
officials.
Hansen comments, "D.A.R.E. cuts people off who
are trying to help them...they do tend to be
paranoid."
The current debate over D.A.R.E. seems
representative of America's Drug War dynamics in
microcosm. It's triggered questions about the
violation of civil liberties and privacy rights,
what constitutes effective drug policy, and whether
an ideology advocating "no use" rather than
"responsible use" can work.
While the viability of Just Say No-type programs
are being called into question, hardline
"treatment" operations, like STRAIGHT and KIDS, are
emerging as even more damaging to teenagers. Both
these organizations, among the worst in the drug
treatment orbit and by-products of a harsh,
extremist Reaganite political agenda, have been
exposed as abusive, and to a degree, fraudulent
ventures.
Like others that have since perished, both are
descended from the early '70s, California, cultlike
Synanon and The Seed. STRAIGHT was shut down
following years of reported adolescent abuse, but
KIDS still thrives in Bergen County, New Jersey.
What finally closed STRAIGHT's doors was a one-
man campaign waged by Richard Bradbury following
his "incarceration" in its St. Petersburg facility
in 1983. Upon his release he began to challenge the
organization--a wearying task given the owner's
political clout. Co-founded by Mel Sembler, a
Florida businessman tight with Republican politicos
(he headed Bush's Florida election fundraising
effort and dropped $125,000 himself into the GOP
pot), STRAIGHT had grown into a multi-million-
dollar 12-state nonprofit network since its 1976
opening, receiving oft-quoted praise from Nancy
Reagan and the Princess of Wales.
When reports of brutal beatings and mental
torture of STRAIGHT clients leaked out, local
newspapers around the country began to cover the
story, and WNBC-TV ran a short segment on the
organization. But despite a rash of lawsuits in
dozens of other states, no investigations were
prompted and no serious action taken in response to
the complaints by state or local authorities in
Florida where STRAIGHT was headquartered,.
"What I witnessed there couldn't be believed,"
says Bradbury. He describes routine deprivation of
sleep, food, and medication as part of the
"treatment," plus forced admissions of illegal drug
use (even when nonexistent). Physical assault was
commonplace. In some cases, adolescents had to be
sent to hospital emergency rooms for care of broken
limbs, bloody noses, black eyes and skull
contusions incurred during "treatment."
"When a kid wouldn't sit up straight in a chair
and admit to whatever someone wanted him to admit,
he'd be slapped, punched, and screamed at," recalls
Bradbury. "When clients resisted, staffers would
organize 'war parties' consisting of other clients,
who were told to beat up those who wouldn't
comply...you had to go along or you'd be the next
victim."
Bradbury spent $40,000 out of pocket and eight
years of his life battling STRAIGHT. He rallied
parents and ex-clients around the cause and finally
won several lawsuits against the organization for
multiple licensure and negligence violations.
Like campaigns against other drug warrior-run
operations, this one was hard-won. STRAIGHT's
strong support system and well-oiled promo
machinery kept it flourishing. An example: Word of
a negative news story on STRAIGHT, scheduled by
WNBC-TV prompted its executive director to travel
to New York for a meeting with the station, while
engineering a nationwide protest-letter-writing
blitz by parents of STRAIGHT kids. And when
newspaper articles chronicling STRAIGHT's abuses
would run, testimonials to the program by grateful
parents would invariably appear within, as well.
When confronted with tales of abuse, former
national clinical director of STRAIGHT and later
head of KIDS of Southern California Virgil Miller
Newton told the L.A. Times that "'starry-eyed'
social workers and other gullible officials are
deceived by 'manipulative' drug addicts who tell
'wild stories' about treatment methods."
Why do parents tolerate such violent "curative"
tactics?
"Partly fear and partly indoctrination," says
prevention specialist Arnold Markowitz, director of
a cult hotline and several adolescent treatment
programs at the Jewish Board of Children and Family
Services, New York. "Parents dealing with teenagers
who have drug problems get desperate, and desperate
people are willing to do anything." But, he says,
"the parents don't know what's really happening
inside these programs; these places put up a good
front. I've dealt with people who've been in these
facilities who were weekend users of marijuana,
moderate to small amounts. Their families were
being told basically that their child was a drug
addict and on the way to crack and heroin and
needed their treatment program. They terrify the
parents, who then turn over all parental control."
Such programs, like STRAIGHT and KIDS, are cultlike
in several respects, says Markowitz.
"There's a stripping down of the client's ego
structure and an attempt at brainwashing. They tell
kids even after three or four years that they can't
function outside and very often get them to work
for very little or no pay."
The fact is, fanatical "tough-love" programs like
STRAIGHT and KIDS existed long before Nancy Reagan
first mouthed her infamous mantra. But the Just Say
No sensibility created a kind of social petri dish
where such programs could breed. Even now, as one
dies, another reproduces.
Today, as the FBI checks into allegations that
STRAIGHT double and triple-billed for the same
health insurance claims, new centers run by former
STRAIGHT staffers have opened in Georgia, Michigan
and Florida, under different names.
So long as the Drug War's "carpet bombing of
lies" continues, such disreputable outfits, many
focusing on children for "total saturation," will
persist, says Rob Steward of the Drug Policy
Foundation. What's needed is education about drugs
that's honest, accurate and informative to counter
the hysteria that's overtaken our nation.
Unfortunately, organizations with access to the
broadest audiences, like the Partnership For A Drug
Free America, continue to censor important drug
data and perpetuate a simplistic, black and white
view of all illegal drugs. In the coming year, the
Partnership's message will reach millions of more
individuals. Its latest mission is to encourage
regional replicas of its national campaign. New
York State, leading the nation with its $75 million
budget for drug prevention, for example, has just
signed on, forming Partners For A Drug Free New
York State.
While the state "has been more concerned lately
with the crack epidemic and misuse of inhalants and
other medicinal drugs," says Rich Hunter of the
governor's Anti-Drug Abuse Council, it will air
Partnership ads covering at one point or another
the full spectrum of illegal drugs.
The Partnership's list of "enemy substances
hasn't changed in years. Booze is not yet targeted;
marijuana, however, lumped together with crack,
cocaine and heroin, is. (Partners For A Drug Free
NYS will create its own booze ads, given the
national Partnership stance.)
Despite the spread of Partnership propaganda,
activists like Wallace optimistically predict
change.
"By revealing D.A.R.E. for what it is, we may
have precipitated a credibility crisis in the
nation's entire Drug War policy. What people are
willing to put up with is changing. And it's
obvious that programs like D.A.R.E. are using our
children as cannon fodder in the name of zero
tolerance."

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