I remember the D.A.R.E. logo being plastered on posters hung in the hallways at school. At one point, I owned an oversized black shirt with the acronym in big red letters. I went to an assembly where a police officer told us some scary statistics about alcohol and drugs and gave us tips on how to “Just Say No.” I just said no for a while, and then I became an alcoholic.
Turns out, I’m not an outlier amongst D.A.R.E. participants. Beginning in the late 1990s studies uncovered disheartening realities that D.A.R.E. had no effect—at all—on whether or not students would go on to use or misuse drugs and alcohol in the future. After nearly 20 years of implementing the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program in schools, long term studies were being published with damning data that proved its ineffectiveness.
A 1999 study published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology stated that “DARE status in the sixth grade was negatively related to self-esteem at age 20, indicating that individuals who were exposed to DARE in the sixth grade had lower levels of self-esteem 10 years later.” Some evidence even points to a higher risk of substance misuse for students who went through D.A.R.E. programs.
[For more on this story by Kristance Harlow, go to https://www.thefix.com/teachin...gs-alternatives-dare]
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