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That approach is part of a no-puppets program called STAR -- Students Taught Awareness and Resistance -- that has been adopted by more than 400 middle and junior-high schools in Indiana, Kansas and Missouri. In five-year follow-up studies undertaken after they complete the 13-session program, graduates have been found to be 20% to 40% less likely than other students to have tried drugs or alcohol. The price: just $15 to $25 a pupil, including the cost of training teachers to conduct the project in their classrooms.
What to do with the millions who will go on to heavy drug use anyway? Falco says the best hope lies with lengthy residential programs, such as Phoenix House in New York City and Amity in Tucson, Arizona. Phoenix House loses about a third of its clients within the first six weeks, but 80% of those who stay the course for at least a year remain drug-free. She also wants more prisons to serve, in effect, as compulsory residential programs for incarcerated drug offenders. But while more than three-quarters of state prison inmates are drug abusers, no more than 20% get any help while serving time.
Falco's title is probably too optimistic. Even universal drug education and treatment on demand will not guarantee a drug-free America. For one thing, only about a quarter of all drug abusers currently seek help to kick their habits. And treatment is far less effective with the inner-city poor than with middle-class drug users. But even a partial success would save more lives and dollars than the present, failed approach. All it would take is a recognition that real wars aren't fought with balloons and puppets.