The Truth about D.A.R.E.

By Paul Armentano, AlterNet. Posted April 4, 2003.

If popularity were the sole measure of success then D.A.R.E., the "Drug Abuse Resistance Education" curriculum, which is now taught in 80 percent of school districts nationwide, would be triumphant. However, if one is to gauge success by actual results, then America's most pervasive and expensive youth drug education program is (and always has been) a gigantic and incontrovertible flop.

So says the General Accounting Office (GAO) in a scathing new report that finds the politically popular program has had "no statistically significant long-term effect on preventing youth illicit drug use." In addition, students who participate in D.A.R.E. demonstrate "no significant differences... [in] attitudes toward illicit drug use [or] resistance to peer pressure" compared to children who had not been exposed to the program, the GAO determined.

Their critique was the latest in a long line of stinging evaluations that have plagued D.A.R.E. throughout its 20-year history. Established in 1983 by former Los Angeles police chief Daryl (All casual drug users should be taken out and shot!) Gates, the D.A.R.E. elementary school curriculum consists of 17 lessons -- taught by D.A.R.E.-trained uniformed police officers -- urging kids to resist the use of illicit drugs, including the underage use of alcohol and tobacco. Upon completion of the curriculum, which often relies on scare tactics and transparent "just say no" ideology, graduates "pledge to lead a drug-free life." Numerous studies indicate few do.

These include:

• A 1991 University of Kentucky study of 2,071 sixth graders that found no difference in the past-year use of cigarettes, alcohol or marijuana among DARE graduates and non-graduates two years after completing the program.
• A 1996 University of Colorado study of over 940 elementary school students that found no difference with regard to illicit drug use, delay of experimentation with illicit drugs, self-esteem, or resistance to peer pressure among D.A.R.E. graduates and non-graduates three years after completing the program.
• A 1998 University of Illinois study of 1,798 elementary school students that found no differences with regards to the recent use of illicit drugs among D.A.R.E. graduates and non-graduates six years after completing the program.
• A 1999 follow-up study by the University of Kentucky that found no difference in lifetime, past-year, or past-month use of marijuana among D.A.R.E. graduates and non-graduates 10 years after completing the program.

In fact, over the years so many studies have assailed D.A.R.E.'s effectiveness that by 2001 even its proponents admitted it needed serious revamping. However, rather than shelving the failed program altogether, D.A.R.E.'s advocates called for expanding its admittedly abysmal curriculum to target middle-school and high-school students -- a move that was lauded by many federal officials and peer educators despite a track record that would spell the demise for most any other program.

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