Perhaps. But consider other languages such as PHP that don't have placeholders. I find that the standard practice is to use id's wherever you can -- such as a drop down boxes of items. Don't pass the value of the drop down -- pass in the id number for that value and translate it back before you issue your query.

my $id = $q->param( 'start_date_id' );

my $date = $dates[$id]; # etc. maybe add real validation

my $sth = $dbh->prepare( 'SELECT this FROM that WHERE date = ?' );
$sth->execute( $date );
[download]