The 1938 government antimarijuana propaganda film Reefer Madness is still watched today for its campy excesses. Dr. Carroll, the moralizing high school principal, warns parents that marijuana is more dangerous than opium and heroin. Those who smoke the drug are depicted as instantly addicted and crazed.
We laugh at these scare tactics today. But the government has not ended its efforts to modify behavior by using campaigns of exaggerations and lies. A new congressional report has found that the nation's most popular government-funded abstinence-only sex education programs are peppered with inaccuracies that misinform young people about the risks of sex, contraceptives and abortion. It's Reefer Madness all over again. Or, as one research group called it, "Scared Chaste."
One aspect of President Bush's continuing efforts to direct our tax money to religiously affiliated groups is the push for a massive expansion of federal funding for abstinence-only sex education. During the 2005 fiscal year, the federal government will spend $170-million to support programs that preach that sex is to be reserved for marriage only, and a number of the recipients of those dollars will be faith-based. That's more than double what was spent in 2001.
But unlike Bush's energetic concern over educational accountability and standards reflected in No Child Left Behind, the curricula for abstinence-only sex education programs are not vetted for accuracy. (There was an attempt by Democratic lawmakers in 2002 to require medical accuracy as a condition of receiving money for these programs, but that effort was voted down by Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.)
