Despite the decades-old wisdom of Charles Barkley, many people continue to think of professional athletes as role models. A lot of the work done by sports teams and players is certainly admirable – the Brewers Community Foundation has a great reputation for its charitable programs, and plenty of individual players are engaged in their own philanthropic pursuits. On the other hand, some of the “good works” done by pro teams and athletes have questionable value.
Take the Brewers’ involvement with the DARE program. (Please.) A relic of the “just say no” Reagan-era, DARE continues to exist long after most things from the 80’s stopped being cool. According to its website (which has a design aesthetic that could best be described as…antiquated), DARE’s police officer-led classroom lessons are still practiced in 75% of U.S. school districts. The DARE program is apparently still is good standing in many quarters – including with our own Milwaukee Brewers. On Saturday, the Brewers official Twitter account informed us that Logan Schafer made some remarks at a DARE tailgate.
Thanks to Logan Schafer for stopping by the D.A.R.E. Tailgate tonight. pic.twitter.com/a6SeauGmJU
— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) April 11, 2015
This isn’t the first time Schafer has participated in a DARE event. Last year, he and Jeff Bianchi also attended the DARE tailgate – there’s even a video at the New Berlin Police Department Facebook page.
I don’t doubt the sincerity of Schafer and the Brewers being involved with DARE. I just wonder if they have any idea how out of step with reality DARE is, or that DARE’s history of ineffectiveness is well-documented.
A simple review of DARE’s website would raise eyebrows. Mixed in with headlines promoting DARE initiatives is some bizarre “Reefer Madness” style fearmongering. One in particular stands out: “Edible Marijuana Candies Kill 9 in Colorado, 12 at Coachella.” I don’t mean to be obvious, but that’s preposterous on its face. We’re all adults here – edible marijuana can certainly cause discomfort if you’re not used to eating as opposed to inhaling, but death is an unlikely outcome (in the short term).
In fact, clicking the links in that post does not lead anywhere that remotely substantiates the “9 deaths in Colorado, 12 at Coachella” headline. You can get to an AP story that tries to link two deaths to pot, but even those links are tenuous.
Beyond posting corny scare stories, there’s a fair amount of evidence of DARE’s history of failure. A 15-year-old American Psychological Association study (PDF) evaluated the impact of DARE on 1,000+ 6th graders after ten years and found, “Few differences were found between the 2 groups in terms of actual drug use, drug attitudes, or self-esteem, and in no case did the DARE group have a more successful outcome than the comparison group.” Another decade-old study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found, “found no significant differences in illicit drug use between students who received DARE in the fifth or sixth grade (the intervention group) and students who did not (the control group).”
DARE uses a different curriculum now called keepin’ it REAL, which seems to be more promising. But DARE did not develop keepin’ it REAL – the curriculum is licensed from Penn State University. The best thing to be said about modern DARE is that after decades of ineffectiveness it took someone else’s good idea and passed it off as its own.
Presumably, neither the Brewers nor Schafer are aware of DARE’s sordid past, or its hysterical present. If they were, I wonder if they would continue to associate with it. They very well might, but I’m sure there are other anti-drug organizations without DARE’s baggage that could use the publicity.
(Image: @Brewers)
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