Emily Hamer's List: DARE program ineffective?

• used in nearly 80% of the school districts in the United States, in 54 other countries around the world, and is taught to 36,000,000 students each year.
• Scientific evaluation studies have consistently shown that DARE is ineffective in reducing the use of alcohol and drugs and is sometimes even counterproductive
• U.S. General Accounting Office, 1 the U.S. Surgeon General, 2 the National Academy of Sciences, 3 and the
• Leaders of DARE say the program shouldn't be judged by evidence
• prefer to rely on feelings
• It’s argued that the program doesn’t need to be evaluated because it’s based on proven educational theories and techniques
• Although irrelevant to effectiveness, most people report satisfaction with DARE
• • When a study done by the National Institute of Kentucky found DARE ineffective, Dare dismissed their findings without any backing.
• a study showed a shocking 29% increase in drug usage and a 34% increase in tobacco usage among students participating in DARE
• use the results to 'fine-tune the program to better serve the children.'" And he unashamedly promoted spending $3.7 million on DARE in the city. 14
• "Scientists tell you that bumblebees can't fly, but we know better."
• the leadership sometimes seems to dismiss scientific evidence as nothing more than opinion or preference.
• The DARE position is that the program works fine; the only problem is with evaluators and anyone who criticizes it.
• Before the study was completed, RTI "started finding that DARE simply didn't work," and released preliminary findings at a conference. 24
• The group made threatening phone calls and violent threats to researchers, determined to hide the information.
• DARE strongly objected and tried to prevent publication.
• "received letters from classrooms in different part of the country, all addressed to 'Dear DARE-basher,' and all using near-identical language." He says that DARE also tried to intimidate USA Today with a lawsuit.
• Federal judge ruled that there was "substantial truth" to the charges in the article that DARE had sought to "suppress scientific research" critical of DARE and had "attempted to silence researchers at the Research Triangle Institute, editors at the American Journal of Public Health, and producers at Dateline: NBC." 29
• • Students drink and do drugs because they think that it's a norm among their peers. When the truth (that the majority of their peers are not involved in those activities) is revealed, then less of them want to do drugs. 
• social norms technique,
• t The Social Norms Marketing Approach and Social Norms Marketing Handbook.

• Web sites on social norms marketing include:

   
   
• National Social Norms Resource Center (www.socialnorm.org)
• Higher Education Center (www.edc.org/hec/socialnorms")
• Montana Social Norms Project (www.mostofus.org/ )
• Alcohol Education Project (www.hws.edu/Aca/depts/alcohol)
• Social Norms 101 Primer (academic.hws.edu/alcohol/SocialNormsPrimer.html)
• To learn more, visit Brief Intervention Techniques. See also Brief Intervention Can Reduce College Alcohol Abuse.
• Brief intervention techniques
• U.S. Department of Education
• has identified the following programs as effective for specific target groups.
• Life Skills Training Program (LST)
• Project ALERT
• Strengthening Families Program (SFP)
• cost, which is high to very high. But because they are effective, they are bargains compared to the completely ineffective DARE
• DARE is expensive in terms of both money and time.
• One researcher discovered that DARE was misrepresenting his findings on its web site to imply that he had found it effective in the long term, which he had not. 34
• "Its well established that DARE doesn't work"
• Dr. Gilbert Botvin - Cornell Medical Center. 35
• "Research shows that, no, DARE hasn't been effective in reducing drug use"
• William Modzeleski, Top Drug education official at the Department of Education
• "a fraud on the people of America,"
• mayor of Salt Lake City,
• "I think the program should be entirely scrapped and redeveloped anew."
• "For far too long our drug-prevention policies have been driven by mindless adherence to a wasteful, ineffective, feel-good program."
• Dr. William Hansen, who helped design the original DARE curriculum.
• More of an ineffective program can't make it effective.
• • Dare has made revisions but they have been tested again and again to be ineffective.
    
• thalidomide.

  • A drug that was developed as a sleeping pill then as a pill to help morning sickness in pregnant women but was quickly found to cause birth defects. (wikipedia)
• despite a mountain of evidence that it's not only ineffective but sometimes even counterproductive and causing harm to young people. 45
• cost of DARE annually is already $1 to 1.3 billion. 46 That's a lot for a completely ineffective, often counterproductive, program.

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