National D.A.R.E. Day, 1999

Proclamation 7180 of April 8, 1999

National D.A.R.E. Day, 1999

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

The Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program,
founded in 1983 by the Los Angeles Police Department
and the Los Angeles Unified School District, helps
children across our Nation develop into the bright,
talented, and healthy individuals they have the
potential to become. The D.A.R.E. curriculum is
designed to give children in kindergarten through 12th
grade the skills they need to avoid involvement in
drugs, gangs, and violence. Taught by community police
officers who have the special training and experience
necessary to address the difficult issues facing young
people, the D.A.R.E. program reaches more than 26
million students each day in nearly 75 percent of our
Nation's school districts, encouraging young Americans
to resist peer pressure and to lead lives free from the
shadows of drugs and violence.

D.A.R.E.'s mission is a crucial one. Drug abuse costs
our Nation more than 14,000 lives and billions of
dollars each year. A recent study by the Department of
Justice confirms that drug use continues to be a factor
in crimes such as burglary, auto theft, assault, and
murder, and that one in six offenders commits a crime
just to get money for drugs. Because of alarming
statistics like these, we must focus our efforts not
just on those already addicted to drugs, but on all our
young people, so that we can reach them before they are
exposed to these illegal substances. Working in
partnership with parents, teachers, and communities,
the D.A.R.E. program conveys to children at an
impressionable age a strong message about the dangers
of substance abuse and strives to give them the tools
and motivation they need to avoid those dangers.

Expanding on grassroots efforts like D.A.R.E., my
Administration's 1999 National Drug Control Strategy
provides a comprehensive approach to move us closer to
a drug-free America. An important part of this long-
term plan is our emphasis on educating children. We
know that when children understand the dangers of
drugs, their rates of drug use decline. Our National
Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign and the Safe and Drug-
Free Schools program focus on helping young Americans
reject illegal drugs and violence. In addition, in
recent years, we have protected and increased the
funding of the Safe and Drug-Free Schools program.
Coupled with programs like D.A.R.E., these efforts
offer us real hope for freeing America's communities
from the tragedy of substance abuse and the crime and
violence they spawn. By doing so, we will give our
children the safe and healthy future they deserve.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, WILLIAM J. CLINTON, President of the
United States of America, by virtue of the authority
vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United
States, do hereby proclaim April 8, 1999, as National
D.A.R.E. Day. I call upon our youth, parents,
educators, and all the people of the United States to
observe this day with appropriate programs and
activities.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
eighth day of April, in the year of our Lord nineteen
hundred and ninety-nine, and of the Independence of the
United States of America the two hundred and twenty-
third.