Children and Young People

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DARE Exploits Children

by David J. Hanson, Ph.D.

At a Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) graduation ceremony in Massachusetts, dozens of fifth-graders and their proud parents gathered in the school auditorium. The head of the state’s DARE Officers Association, Domenic DiNatale, was master of ceremonies.

“DiNatale asked the children, ‘When people say DARE doesn’t work, what do you say?’

Some children mumbled, ‘It does.”

DiNatalie said, ‘Louder!’ And the kids, in unison, said, ‘It does!’” 1

DARE is teaching students a falsehood. Not a single peer-reviewed published study has ever found DARE to be effective in reducing subsequent alcohol consumption or drug use. Scientific research consistently finds that DARE is not only ineffective, but sometimes even counterproductive -- worse than doing nothing. That’s the conclusion of the U.S. General Accounting Office, the U.S. Surgeon General, the National Academy of Sciences, and the U.S. Department of Education. That’s why the federal government strictly prohibits schools from spending federal funds on the failed program. And that’s why the state of Massachusetts has stopped funding the program as well.

But that clearly hasn’t stopped DARE from indoctrinating students, presumably in a ploy to build political pressure to restore state funding for the ineffective program. But whatever the reason, it doesn’t justify the unethical and unprofessional treatment of children.

Instead of attempting to save the ineffective DARE program, we should be implementing the social norms marketing approach or one of the other effective programs, such as the Life Skills Training Program (LST), Project ALERT, or the Strengthening Families Program (SFP).

The social norms approach can be used with any target group and is very inexpensive to implement. The latter programs are limited to restricted target groups and their cost is high to very high. But because they are effective, they are bargains compared to the completely ineffective DARE program.

With all of the effective programs available, there is simply no excuse to continue using the useless and sometimes counterproductive DARE program. Our young people deserve much better.

And they certainly shouldn’t be lied to and turned into a DARE version of the Hitler Youth.

 

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