quote:
And in addition DARE cars are paid for with cash seized from dealers by statute in California."
In case you missed it, I said "tax payers money and
public funds.
Seized assets become "public funds," since the police department is a "public agency."
It makes far more sense to put the extra money into anti-domestic violence programs, or grief counselors, or extra police officers, or newer bullet proof vests, et cetera, than it does to spend the public funds on
fancy, extravagent, unneccesary, ego stroking vehicles.
BTW: EVERY statatistic, analysis, and study done (not directly conducted by a police department), has shown DARE to be an unmitigated failure.
http://www.csdp.org/news/news/darerevised.htm
http://www.fcda.org/trimble.htm
"ABC news reports that the DARE program has admitted that their anti-drug program in the nations school has failed. The report said that DARE ignored numerous reports that their anti-drug messages were falling on deaf ears."
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/uicnews.htm
"In 1991, a U.S. Justice Department study determined that kids who had gone through a DARE program used drugs as often as kids who had not."
http://tanadineen.com/COLUMNIST/Columns/DARE-ReportMag.htm
"Despite its claim to "a remarkable record of success," its widespread popularity, and the massive contributions it receives from government and private sources, no evidence exists that DARE keeps kids off drugs. Research studies consistently fail to prove its worth."
http://www.time.com/time/education/article/0,8599,99564,00.html
"Here's a news flash: "Just Say No" is not an effective anti-drug message. And neither are Barney-style self-esteem mantras."
"According to an article published in the August 1999 issue of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, DARE not only did not affect teenagers' rate of experimentation with drugs, but may also have actually lowered their self-esteem. The study, called "Project DARE: No Effects at 10-Year Follow-Up," bluntly deconstructs every claim the program makes."
"The findings were grim: 20-year-olds who'd had DARE classes were no less likely to have smoked marijuana or cigarettes, drunk alcohol, used "illicit" drugs like cocaine or heroin, or caved in to peer pressure than kids who'd never been exposed to DARE."
http://www.mises.org/story/1188
"However, if one is to gauge success by actual results, then America's most pervasive and expensive youth drug education program is (and always has been) a gigantic and incontrovertible flop.
So says the General Accounting Office (GAO) in a scathing new report that finds the politically popular program has had "no statistically significant long-term effect on preventing youth illicit drug use." In addition, students who participate in D.A.R.E. demonstrate "no significant differences... [in] attitudes toward illicit drug use [or] resistance to peer pressure" compared to children who had not been exposed to the program"
Don't throw good money after bad.
Don't waste our public funds (be they gathered from taxes or seized assets) on an unmitigated distaster of a program.
Don't feed the ego of money hungry bureaucrats by letting them purchase extravegant, unneccesary, luxury items.
yeah, that's my $.02 and I am consistant