Taken from: High Times, June 1994
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Highwitness News
PROGRAMMING FASCISM - THE DRUG WAR ON OUR CHILDREN

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 centre.
   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 travelling 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.  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 representative of its merits
and  his   son's  dangerous  inclination  towards drugs.  STRAIGHT, its
promoters told him, would protect Richard, "cure" him.
   Nearly  10   years later and halfway across the country, in southern
Maine, another disturbing event occured.  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
uninformed   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, occuring  in  two seperate 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 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-80's when the Regan-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 to be abolished altogether.  The
course  material, methods of delivery and, in fact, basic philosophical
premise of the program is seriously flawed, he claimed.
   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 openess 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.  According to research done by
Nancy Tobler - an educator and PhD candidate at the State University at
Albany  -  and  presented at a California conference on prevention last
summer,  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 then curb drug use in the
long run.
   Dr. William Coulson,  research  director  of the Institute of Ethno-
psychology 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."
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 Sep-
tember,  dozens of congressional representatives turned out for a high-
visibility  photo-op;  also  noticeably  present  were Attorney General
Janet Reno and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
   Diehard program boosters 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 cur-
riculum 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 [Crystal Grendell's] have occured.  And when a child reports
a  dangerous  situation at home, we applaud teachers (who)... report it
to the proper authorities."  Even when a child like Crystal Grendell is
traumatized in the process.)
   Glenn  Levant,  D.A.R.E.'s  executive director, wasn't avaliable for
comment,   but  spokeswoman  Roberta  Silverman  emphasized  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  Chapel  Hill, North Carolina, who belongs to a loose,
bipartisan  coalition  of  parents that includes liberals, libertarians
and right-wingers the likes of Phyllis Schlafly, who oppose D.A.R.E.
   "There's  D.A.R.E.  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 D.A.R.E. logo.  And
there   are  parades  with  colorful  banners  waving and big D.A.R.E.-
mobiles.   The  students  see  the  D.A.R.E. 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."  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 T.V. shows, including Larry King Live and
60 Minutes also  aired D.A.R.E. segments.  Then, last season, T.V.'s LA
Law  dramatized   the  Grendell incident in an episode.  Finally, a USA
Today article last October blasted D.A.R.E. with the headline: "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 cur-
riculum  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 com-
plained 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. is a microcosm of America's Drug
War  dynamics.  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, 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  Bardbury  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 off-quoted praise from Nancy Reagan.
   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 no
investigations  were  prompted  and no serious action taken by state or
local  authorities  in  response  to  the  complaints  in Florida where
STRAIGHT was headquartered.
   "What  I  witnessed  there couldn't be believed," says Bradbury.  He
describes routine deprevation 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 invariable appear
within, as well.
   When  confronted  with tales  of abuse, Virgil Miller Newton, former
national clinical director of STRAIGHT and later head of KIDS of South-
ern  California, told  the L.A. Times that "starry-eyed' social workers
and   other  gulliable  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,
in  New  York  City.   "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.  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 need 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 insurance claims, new centres run by former
STRAIGHT  staffers  have  opened  up 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 Stewart 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  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 with the crack epidemic and
misuse of inhalants and other medicinal drugs," says Rich Hunter of the
Govenor's  Anti-Drug  Abuse  Council,  it will air Partnership ads cov-
ering 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.
   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."