Proclamation 6020—National D.A.R.E. Day, 1989

Project D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) is a collaborative drug and alcohol abuse prevention effort targeted for American students in kindergarten through junior high. Recognizing the tremendous peer pressure placed upon children to try illegal drugs and alcohol, the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Unified School District launched this innovative program in 1983. Taught by veteran uniformed police officers who know the dangers of substance abuse and who have witnessed firsthand the devastation it causes, the D.A.R.E. program is designed to teach vulnerable children how to resist the temptation to experiment with drugs and alcohol.

The officers who conduct the D.A.R.E. program follow a curriculum that helps students develop a greater sense of self-esteem and self-control. The D.A.R.E. curriculum also teaches students how to analyze and resist seductive images of drug and alcohol use, whether those images are presented by peers or the popular media; and it helps them recognize the consequences of their decisions.

The D.A.R.E. program reaches out to parents as well, helping them to understand the pressures faced by their children and showing them how to recognize symptoms of drug and alcohol abuse. Parents are informed of positive and effective approaches they may use to help their children with these serious problems.

Since its inception just 6 years ago, word of the success of the D.A.R.E. program -- not only in preventing substance abuse, but also in improving students' grades, reducing gang activity, and promoting respect for police officers -- has spread throughout the United States. Today, the D.A.R.E. program is conducted in nearly every State. The program is also being implemented at Department of Defense dependents schools, at Bureau of Indian Affairs schools, and by United States Park Police and Rangers in communities located near National Park units. New Zealand, Canada, and Australia have also begun to use D.A.R.E. as part of their drug and alcohol abuse prevention strategies.

In recognition ofthis successful anti-drug program and the cooperation it has fostered among students, parents, law enforcement personnel, and educators, the Congress, by House Joint Resolution 276, has designated September 14, 1989, as "National D.A.R.E. Day" and has authorized and requested the President to issue a proclamation in observance of this event.

Now, Therefore, I, George Bush, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim September 14, 1989, as National D.A.R.E. Day. I call upon the people of the United States, in particular, parents, students, school administrators, and law enforcement officials, to observe this day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this thirteenth day of September, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and fourteenth.

GEORGE BUSH