Another common type of spin control can be found in a 1987 report on DARE, one of the few studies that had good things to say about the controversial program. The author describes DARE's wonderful results in the text of the article; only by closely reading the statistical tables do you discover that the program was only a modest success -- or an outright failure.

While the author states in the text that "DARE students reported significantly less use of cigarettes and hard liquor," the tables show that the improvement by DARE students was barely measurable. No difference at all was found for use of marijuana, speed, downers, inhalants, or PCP.

This study also found a "boomerang effect," where DARE seems to have encouraged some of the children to experiment with drugs. Again, the text and the tables revealed two different results. Analyzed by gender, DARE boys showed a slight improvement in drug use, knowledge, and attitudes. DARE girls, however, became worse by almost exactly the same degrees. But in his discussion, the author emphasized the good news and hid the bad: "Boys who had DARE showed much less substance use, whereas girls displayed few differences between the DARE and NO DARE groups."