D.A.R.E. To Debate

The failure of D.A.R.E.’s effort to protect our youth.

Majority of us in the United States know what D.A.R.E. is. Even people outside of the United States know about this program. I remember the first time D.A.R.E. came to my school in the fifth grade, while my family and I were stationed in Japan. I remember fun, games, candy and mascots parading all throughout my school. Sadly, that is all I remember from the D.A.R.E. program. I don’t remember them educating us on drugs or really explaining the harmful affects of any drugs, just having fun missing class and hanging out with my peers. Many other students, such as myself, in this program are not provided with beneficial information to avoid drugs or peer pressure to do drugs; therefor making D.A.R.E. ineffective at preventing drug use amongst teens.

This brings me to my topic; does D.A.R.E. really benefit our youth and keep them off of drugs as the years come to pass? There has been much debate over this topic between the pros and cons of this program and how it affects elementary, middle and high school students. Below is a chart I extracted from ProCon.org, which depicts the points of both sides in this debate.

This chart depicts both pros and cons but for this article I am going to focus mainly on the cons and explain how they came about. First, many people believe D.A.R.E. promotes positive decision making towards drugs by keeping kids off them, when in reality it is proven through studies that D.A.R.E. actually has negative affects on the youth and drugs because it is an ineffective program. In 1989–1996, a study of D.A.R.E. was conducted among suburban teens who were graduates in the program. It was reported that there was a 3–5% high rate of drug use from teens that participated in D.A.R.E. compared to those who didn’t. Also in 2009, a study reported that students, located in several metropolitan areas, who attended D.A.R.E. when visited at their school, had a 3–4% higher alcohol and cigarette use in the eleventh grade, compared to other students in the same grade who did not participate in D.A.R.E. This raises the question, why can’t D.A.R.E. keep teens off drugs?

D.A.R.E. is used mainly in primary schools, so when kids are taught about the knowledge and harm of drugs, they only retain the information for about two years. By the time they reach middle school, they forget everything they learned and are more influenced by their peers to do drugs. This brings me to my next point, D.A.R.E. mainly promotes a zero-tolerance drug use and does not really address substantial information on drugs or their negative affects. Since kids have no real knowledge of drugs (just that they’re bad), they are more influenced to do drugs and forget the zero-tolerance rule when they see their family or peers do drugs. Kids without real knowledge are more likely to be peer pressured when they’re older or more willing to do drugs because they believe they are harmless and fun. They have no knowledge of the effects so they think they are invincible when it comes to drugs and are more likely to participate in drug use along with their peers. Also in today’s society 90% of high school students have reported that they respond negatively to D.A.R.E. because the message is repetitive and the program is tedious. This pushed kids even farther away from wanting to learn about drugs and how detrimental they can be.

Finally, D.A.R.E. has no effect on drug prevention because it tends to make most parents less concerned about teaching their kids about drugs and alcohol. These parents develop a false sense of security because they feel D.A.R.E. is providing their kids with the right information and tools to keep them away from drugs, when in reality it doesn’t, which I already explained why previously. D.A.R.E. also does not reach out to the parents as they do with kids in school either. Most parents have no knowledge of D.A.R.E. and the beneficial tools it can provide them with on how to keep their kids off drugs when they grow and enter into “high school party/drug scene.” Parents need to be the most involved in their child’s life when regarding their health and safety. Since D.A.R.E. misguides them and makes most feel secure, they aren’t as actively involved, therefor they have no idea their kids are not learning from the program, which in turn leads to their kids becoming more likely doing drugs or drinking with their peers.