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National Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) Day
by David J. Hanson, Ph.D.
Every year the sitting president of the United States routinely declares a day in April to be National DARE Day.
That action might be appropriate if the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program were actually effective, which it clearly is not.
Unfortunately, scientific evaluation studies have consistently shown that DARE is ineffective in reducing the use of alcohol and drugs and is sometimes even counterproductive -- worse than doing nothing. That's the conclusion of the U.S. General Accountability Office, the U.S. Surgeon General, the National Academy of Sciences, and the U.S. Department of Education, among many others.
- The U.S. General Accounting Office found "no significant differences in illicit drug use between students who received DARE... and ...students who did not." 1
- The U.S. Surgeon General has placed DARE under the category of "Ineffective Programs." 2
- The National Academy of Sciences has found DARE ineffective. 3
- The U.S. Department of Education prohibits schools from spending federal money on DARE because it found the program ineffective in reducing alcohol and drug use. 4
And the list goes on:
- The National Institutes of Health funded a study by scholars at the University of Kentucky to examine the effect of DARE on students over the subsequent ten years. The study concluded: "Our results are consistent in documenting the absence of beneficial effects associated with the DARE program. This was true whether the outcome consisted of actual drug use or merely attitudes toward drug use." 5
- The U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance funded a Research Triangle Institute (RTI), study. It not only found that DARE failed to significantly reduce drug use but researchers warned that "DARE could be taking the place of other, more beneficial drug-use curricula." 6
- The Canadian government funded a study that found that "D.A.R.E. had no significant effect on the students' use of any of the substances measured.... They included: tobacco, beer, pop, marijuana, acid, Valium, wine, aspirin, uppers, downers, heroin, crack (cocaine), liquor, candy, glue and PCP." 7
- The California legislative analyst's office not only found that DARE is ineffective but that suburban students who took DARE were more likely than others to drink, smoke and take drugs. 8
- The Illinois State Police funded a study that found DARE inadvertently encouraged some students to try drugs. 9
- Dr. Dennis Rosenbaum of the University of Illinois at Chicago tracked students who took DARE and found that "suburban students who participated in DARE reported significantly higher rates of drug use … than suburban students who did not participate in the program." 10
Many other studies of the ineffectiveness of DARE are listed in the Readings section. On the other hand, not a single scientific study has ever been published that has found any evidence that the DARE program has any effectiveness whatsoever in reducing alcohol and/or drug abuse.
Given these facts, the only appropriate date for National DARE Day would be April first ---April Fools Day.
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