Further, during this trial phase, the majority of schools will continue with the original unproven curriculum. Rather than expend limited drug prevention dollars revising a program that is a proven failure, it would make more sense to invest in existing drug prevention models that have proven successful. The most effective drug-prevention strategies include alternative activity programs that keep kids busy after school, the hours of highest delinquency. Another vital approach to redirecting those kids who are most at risk is keeping them in school rather than expelling and abandoning them when they do get into trouble with drugs. Drug treatment should be available upon request.
Treatment is ten times more cost effective than interdiction in reducing the use of drugs.
Most importantly, we should keep families together by providing alternatives to incarceration for non-violent drug offenders. Youth who live in families where one parent is absent are twice as likely as their peers to be incarcerated sometime during their lives. It is time to rethink our overall policy of drug education and drug prevention. Now, let us finish the job for our nation's families.