D.A.R.E.

[Page 187]Since shortly after its inception in 1983, the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program has been the most widespread substance abuse prevention program in the United States. Since its birth, D.A.R.E. has been highly popular with law enforcement agencies, parents, and school administrators. However, virtually all empirical tests of D.A.R.E.'s effectiveness have found that the program does not reduce substance use and abuse rates in participants. These findings, and their dissemination into the public realm via mainstream media reports, led to a public overhaul of the program that began in 2001 and continued until 2009. Through the adoption of new tactics and development of more specialized curriculum, the new D.A.R.E. program boasts of increased efficacy through the use of evidence-based practices. While the revised format continues to be popular and now incorporates therapeutic tactics found to be successful in other settings, the fundamental message and delivery system remain the same today and there is still no scientific evidence that D.A.R.E. discourages drug use.

Initiated by Los Angeles police chief Darryl Gates in 1983, D.A.R.E. was designed to educate fifth and sixth graders about drugs and decision-making while promoting the message of “Just Say No.” Specially-trained police officers deliver this message in classroom-based prevention-oriented lectures about drugs and personal decision making, an approach that quickly became popular with many stakeholders, including school officials, law enforcement agencies, and parents. Fueled by that popularity and highly-publicized success anecdotes, D.A.R.E. quickly expanded to other age groups and school systems, becoming the most prevalent drug prevention program in the United States. By 2000, over 50,000 officers were acting as D.A.R.E. representatives, and the program had been implemented in over 80 percent of U.S. school systems, as well as in over 40 nations. The message also expanded to promote abstinence from smoking, gangs, alcohol, and violence, as did the budget, with training and implementation costs of over $1 billion per year by 2000.

As D.A.R.E. expanded, numerous studies evaluated its impacts. Researchers found that parents, D.A.R.E. officers, teachers, and school administrators were confident that the program was useful, improved student knowledge about risks associated with drug use, and encouraged students to speak about drug use at home. D.A.R.E. participants also outperformed nonparticipants on tests measuring their knowledge of drugs and alcohol and the associated risks (though those gains often faded over time).

However, in terms of the program's effects on drug use and abuse, every major study concluded that D.A.R.E. failed to provide tangible benefits. Not a single peer-reviewed study showed long or short-term reductions in substance use for D.A.R.E. students, and some studies found that the program increased drug use among participants. Due to these findings, the American Psychological Association published a report stating that D.A.R.E. interventions provided no reliable long-term or short-term beneficial outcomes for adolescents or young adults. This was followed by similar reports from the Surgeon General's Office and the National Academy of the Sciences.

While evaluations of D.A.R.E. have not been positive, the program does seem to improve the perceptions of the police held by children, especially children in high-crime neighborhoods, and research indicates that positive perceptions of police reduce the probability of committing crimes. Similarly, police tend to hold more positive opinions toward children who are in the D.A.R.E. program compared to those who are not.

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