Study of Calif. Anti-Drug Education Programs Stirs Debate

By Millicent Lawton

A dispute between the California Department of Education and a researcher it hired has drawn new attention to the political and educational difficulties of teaching children to stay away from drugs.

The controversy centers on an evaluation of the state's anti-drug-abuse education programs, commissioned by the education department, that questions their effectiveness.

Joel H. Brown, a senior scientist with the Bethesda, Md.-based Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, says the department has withheld from the public the results of his study of the state's drug-, alcohol-, and tobacco-education...