DARE Is Ineffective

12 Pages 2993 Words

experimented with alcohol. This shows a need to reach kids earlier then fifth grade. Except, young elementary students do not understand the harmful consequences information; elementary level students showed and high school students stated, that when they were in elementary school, they did not understand the harmful consequences that the DARE officer spoke of. (DRCNet-quotes for notes, 7) According to Dr. Joel Brown, “Even though many students can display the rote knowledge that any substance use is unhealthy, at the same time during the early grades, students show little or no evidence of understanding harmful consequences information.”
A second problem in DARE is using police officers to convey the exaggerated “drugs are bad” message. It is counterproductive-at least for older children-because teenagers distrust figures in such obvious positions of authority. (Masci 6) Peter Reuter, a professor of public policy at the University of Maryland, notes that teens routinely see themselves in opposition to law-enforcement authori...