In the 1980s, the War on Drugs began. First Lady Nancy Reagan urged people to “just say no” to drugs. There was the ad of a man frying an egg to demonstrate “this is your brain on drugs.”
And there was D.A.R.E., Drug Abuse Resistance Education. Next month, it turns 40 years old. When it started in 1983, D.A.R.E. trained police officers to teach students about the dangers of drug abuse. Within a few years, it was in schools nationwide.
In rural Nevada, some schools still do it. But it ended in the Clark County School District in 2012. But as drugs are a big, big part of society, schools can’t ignore it. So where or how is drug education taught today?
Dennis Osborn is western regional director for D.A.R.E. America. He joined State of Nevada host Joe Schoenmann along with Lt. Bryan Zink of the Clark County School District Police Department and Tabitha Johnson, a licensed drug counselor in Nevada.
On how the D.A.R.E. program has changed
OSBORN: In 2009, D.A.R.E. went with a curriculum that we still have today called "Keeping It Real." And Keeping It Real was developed by the University of Arizona, Arizona State and Penn State universities. And it was a collaboration between those universities to create this curriculum based on social emotional learning. And that's what we're using today. In 2018, for a three-year, multi-longitudinal study that involved nine states and 45 different schools that went for three years, just ended in 2021, and that study was by the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. So now that we've had a study on the current curriculum, that is an amazing thing, because the results were positive, it did show reductions, it showed that [it] was effective. So the more we can get that message out, it really helps us, because there's so many studies, like you just mentioned, of the old curriculum, and a lot of people don't realize that we switched curriculums in 2009 for middle school, and then in 2013 for the elementary school.
On the program some Clark County schools use, LEAD
ZINK: A lot of the aspects are basically are the same. But LEAD is Law Enforcement Against Drugs. So it's a 10-week curriculum that is led by a police officer in a sixth grade classroom. Right now it's a K-12 curriculum, but we're doing it in the sixth grade. It's led by the police officer with the assistance of the teacher if they want to participate. It's all fact-based education program that's been researched, tested, and implemented. We started last year and about five middle schools. And then this year, we've expanded to nine and then next year, we plan to expand into 20 schools, which will include some high schools.
On the social emotional learning aspect of these programs
JOHNSON: Essentially, both LEAD and D.A.R.E. are looking at prevention. And we're opening that conversation, teaching kids how to make healthy choices. But we also want to integrate the family, the importance of the family. So I'm also a licensed marriage and family therapist. … Being able to open up those conversations so that, you know, sometimes kids are dealing with some difficult things at home, whether there's a divorce, domestic violence, those types of things. And we know many of the clients that I work with, they come in to say, "You know, Ms. Tabitha, I just don't want to feel like this anymore. So I started to smoke, I started to, you know, use weed, whatever that might be." We're trying to get to the root of what that causes. And so I think programs like [these], we just want to integrate the family court piece of it, so that we can continue that dialogue and understand where's the pain coming from? And is this why I'm choosing to use it? You know, by the same token, also educating the ramifications of substance use.
Guests: Dennis Osborn, western regional director, D.A.R.E. America; Lt. Bryan Zink, public information officer, Clark County School District Police Department; Tabitha Johnson, licensed clinical alcohol and drug counselor, Marathon Counseling
