DARE Is Ineffective

12 Pages 2993 Words

that the majority will choose to experiment. Seventy-seven percent of teens will use alcohol and fifty-one percent will use some illicit drug before graduating high school. Part of this reason is because the affects of DARE wear off very quickly.
Some people believe DARE works because little kids right out of the program are flaunting their DARE pins, bumper stickers and slogans. But the truth of the matter is that DARE doesn’t stick. One six year study by the University of Illinois found that the program’s effects were off by senior year of high school; in fact, it detected some increased drug use by suburban high school students who had taken the program. And a ten-year study by the University of Kentucky found the DARE program had no affect on students by the time they were 20 years old. Even the President and founder of DARE, Glenn Levant admitted to DARE’s flaws, “I’m not saying it was effective, but it was state of the art when we launched it. Now it’s time for science to improve upon what we’re doing.” If so, why are we spending millions on a program that has proved ineffective?
Every year the government spends millions of dollars to promote abstinence only curricula in our schools and public education campaigns in the media. Despite these spending levels, these programs fail to deter youthful experimentation.
In 1994, the US Department of Justice concluded that DARE has no statistically significant impact on reducing drug rates in DARE participants. This is due to the many problems that DARE exhibits.
One problem with DARE is that the timing is off. A survey done by Dr. Bruce Gay, revealed that a significant number of fifth graders, many of whom are twelve years old, were experimenting with controlled substances even before DARE. Dr. Gay’s study found that fifteen percent of students had tried drugs before the DARE program began; eighteen percent had tried tobacco, and thirty two percent had...