Attorney General Jeff Sessions wants to revive the D.A.R.E. program

[Travis B]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...nts-to-revive/

Speaking at a D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) conference this week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions praised the past work of the famous anti-drug program, saying it saved lives:

I believe that D.A.R.E. was instrumental to our success by educating children on the dangers of drug use. I firmly believe that you have saved lives. And I want to say thank you for that. Whenever I ask adults around age 30 about prevention, they always mention the D.A.R.E. program. Your efforts work. Lives and futures are saved.

Sessions may believe that the program saved lives but decades of evidence-based research, including some conducted by the Justice Department he now heads, has shown the program to be ineffective -- and it might even make the drug problem worse. A little history:

D.A.R.E. was founded in 1983 as a partnership between the Los Angeles Police Department and L.A.'s public schools. The idea was simple: Officers would go into schools to talk to kids, "boosting the self-esteem of students so that they can resist the temptation to use drugs," as the L.A. Times put it in a 10-year retrospective on the program written in 1993.

The program drew bipartisan praise and spread like wildfire. Politicians realized that by supporting D.A.R.E., they could paint themselves as pro-cops and pro-kids: a win-win. Ronald Reagan proclaimed the first "National D.A.R.E. Day" in 1988, a tradition that continued well into the Obama administration.

Eventually, the program was put in place in up to 75 percent of the nation's school districts, by D.A.R.E.'s own count. At its height, the group boasted an 8-figure budget, with much of that money coming from government sources. Individual state affiliates raised millions more.

But with success came scrutiny. Public health researchers started looking for evidence that the program was meeting its goals of reducing teen drug use. The first wave of studies, published in the early 1990s, didn't find any.

"The effectiveness of D.A.R.E. in altering students' drug use behavior has yet to be established," concluded a University of Illinois at Chicago study in 1991.

Other research arrived at similar results. In 1994 the Research Triangle Institute, funded in part by the Department of Justice, conducted a meta-analysis of all the existing research on D.A.R.E. Its conclusion was withering: D.A.R.E. had little to no impact on rates of teen drug use.

"D.A.R.E.'s limited influence on adolescent drug use behavior contrasts with the program's popularity and prevalence," the authors wrote. "An important implication is that D.A.R.E. could be taking the place of other, more beneficial drug use curricula that adolescents could be receiving."

The DOJ was so incensed by this unexpected finding that it refused to publish the study, according to contemporaneous news reports. "I don't get it," D.A.R.E.'s executive director at the time said of the RTI study's findings. "It's like kicking Santa Claus to me. We're as pure as the driven snow."

But the kicking had only just begun. More studies showing similar findings trickled out in the 1990s. One study even suggested that D.A.R.E. students were more likely than their peers to experiment with drugs and alcohol. The authors of that study chalked that up to a possible boomerang effect: "an attempt to persuade resulting in the adoption of an opposing position instead." Telling a certain type of kid that he shouldn't do drugs may simply result in him trying drugs out of spite.

By 2003 the Government Accountability Office launched its own D.A.R.E. study to see if the Department of Justice was getting a decent return on its D.A.R.E investment. The conclusion? "No significant differences in illicit drug use between students who received D.A.R.E." and those who didn't.

The GAO report was the beginning of the end of D.A.R.E. as most of us knew it. Funding started to dry up: in 2002, before the GAO report, D.A.R.E. had an annual budget of over $10 million dollars. By 2012, that figure had shrunk to $3.5 million.

By the late 2000s, D.A.R.E. was faced with a choice: change or die. They opted for the former. The group decided to cautiously embrace evidence-based research after decades of antagonism toward it. The most significant change was the adoption of a new curriculum, entitled "keepin' it REAL."

Cringeworthy title aside, some of the research on this program to date suggests it actually works. It was commended in the recent Surgeon General's Report on drug addiction for demonstrating efficacy at preventing substance use. The secret? "It's not an anti-drug program," a co-developer of the new curriculum told Scientific American in 2014. "It's about things like being honest and safe and responsible."

If it almost seems like D.A.R.E. isn't really an anti-drug group anymore, that's because it isn't. The group explicitly spells this new reality out in its tax filings. Prior to 2009, D.A.R.E. stated on its 990 IRS filings that its mission was "to implement and support drug abuse resistance education and crime prevention programs in the USA."

Post-2009, its mission is to simply "teach students good decision making skills to help them lead safe and healthy lives."

Not everyone in the public health community is convinced the new D.A.R.E. is any better than the old D.A.R.E. A peer-reviewed study published last year found that the specific versions of the keepin' it REAL curriculum used by D.A.R.E. haven't been tested for efficacy.

"The systematic review revealed major shortfalls in the evidence basis for the KiR D.A.R.E. programme," that study's authors conclude. "Without empirical evidence, we cannot conclusively confirm or deny the effectiveness of the programme. However, we can conclude that the evidence basis for the D.A.R.E. version of KiR is weak, and that there is substantial reason to believe that KiR D.A.R.E. may not be suited for nationwide implementation."

There's no doubt, however, that D.A.R.E. is currently making an effort to adopt more of an evidence-based approach than in prior years, when the program's practices were largely driven by the belief that they were "pure as the driven snow." This brings us back to the central irony of Jeff Sessions' remarks yesterday, when he yearned for a return to the D.A.R.E. of "the 1980s and the 1990s."

Decades of research are unequivocal: the D.A.R.E. of yesteryear didn't work, and it may have actually made the drug problem worse. Instead of embracing D.A.R.E.'s new evidence-based practices, Sessions offered up a return to the bad old days of drug policy, when decisions were driven by gut feeling and political expediency.

We already know how that story ended: billions of dollars spent, millions of people imprisoned, and stronger, cheaper drugs. D.A.R.E. is already trying to turn the page on the harsh and ineffective drug policies of the past. At the moment, it appears the Justice Department is trying to revive them.

I remember the D.A.R.E. program from when I was younger. It was an absolute joke and completely ineffective. If anything, it turned more kids onto drugs than off of them. Jeff Sessions truly is a relic of the 20th century.

[Mister Cheese]

I don't even fucking remember it... I think the program I went through went so in depth with some of these drugs they pretty much would tell you the safest ways to take them instead of telling you outright not to do it. The lines were so blurred. Which is probably why they're seeing the results they have now.

[helebelemon]

It was free swag. Still, most kids made fun of DARE/SANE. It's a disconnection of politicians and the impoverished. The kids who do drugs and get into gangs aren't all kids--they're kids from susceptible households where family members are already gang bangers and druggies.

[Kazgrel]

I believe that D.A.R.E. was instrumental to our success by educating children on the dangers of drug use. I firmly believe that you have saved lives. And I want to say thank you for that. Whenever I ask adults around age 30 about prevention, they always mention the D.A.R.E. program. Your efforts work. Lives and futures are saved.

We remember it because we got a t-shirt from it...and that's about it, heh.

Chalk this up as part of "news that should surprise no one"...no, not being snarky at you, OP. Just stating that this should come as no surprise to anyone who knows anything about Jeff Sessions (who, if I could pluck anyone out of the executive branch, it would be him, not Trump).

[Clone]

Even as a kid I thought it was lame.

[Belize]

Oh dude, I hope they bring back those weird commercials

[Sinyc]

I remember the D.A.R.E. program from when I was younger. It was an absolute joke and completely ineffective. If anything, it turned more kids onto drugs than off of them. Jeff Sessions truly is a relic of the 20th century.

Right a program that teaches young kids about the dangers and risks of doing drugs in a time period when Opiod overdoses are a nightly occurrence is SUCHHHHH a bad thing.

[Polyxo]

I remember people smoking weed wearing DARE shirts for fun.

[Belize]

Right a program that teaches young kids about the dangers and risks of doing drugs in a time period when Opiod overdoses are a nightly occurrence is SUCHHHHH a bad thing.

D.A.R.E was a failure on all fronts.

[pathora44]

Jeff Sessions is a racist little elf man who has this idiotic view on drugs. The guy still has the idea that weed is this terrible drug that is going to destroy America when he couldn't be more wrong. Learn from states like Colorado and Washington legalize it, tax is, and rake in the money. Sadly no he rather cost millions upon millions of taxpayer money to keep fight the war on weed and filling up our over populated prisons with what should be non offenders. Wouldn't surprise me to find out Sessions has stock in private prisons and wants to keep the beds full so he makes even more money.

[jackofwind]

We wore those DARE t shirts ironically before hipsters were even a thing.

We wore them in basements while we were doing exactly the things it taught us not to do.

[Dhrizzle]

In the UK we could only get the Marilyn Manson version.

[TheCount]

The only thing I really remember about DARE was that it allowed us to basically skip 30mins of class in order to watch some dumb movie.

[docterfreeze]

Hopefully they modernize the program and present the facts about drug use instead of using scare tactics. The anti-tobacco campaign "Truth" has been pretty effective.

[jackofwind]

You know why I didn't smoke weed or try other drugs in high school? Because my parents didn't care and gave me positive reinforcement for when I did socially acceptable things like get good grades or participate in sports.

Pretty much. Teenagers are like dogs in lots of ways, and positive reinforcement is way more likely to elicit the response you're looking for.

[Garnier Fructis]

Right a program that teaches young kids about the dangers and risks of doing drugs in a time period when Opiod overdoses are a nightly occurrence is SUCHHHHH a bad thing.

I seriously don't understand this mentality. Do you actually want to reduce drug use or just pretend that you are?

We should be looking for different ways to discourage drug use instead of sticking with a tactic that's known to not work.

[breadisfunny]

I remember DARE. I remember all my classmates thinking it was hilariously stupid, no one took it seriously.

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Lol yeah I remember my classmates trying (or at least claiming to try) marijuana on the same days that the DARE reps would come by. I never participated in that, however I did start smoking tobacco partially to spite all of the anti-tobacco programs they ran at my school.

You tell normal teenagers, "don't do this" and their response 99% of the time will be, "fuck you I'll do it just to spite you." The ones who don't do that are usually the ones you see in the news years later having like, chopped up their family and eaten them or getting in trouble for having an animal sex trafficking ring or something. It's just not normal for teenagers to submit to authority like that.

You know why I didn't smoke weed or try other drugs in high school? Because my parents didn't care and gave me positive reinforcement for when I did socially acceptable things like get good grades or participate in sports.

and 30 years later your body has the last laugh as your dying from cancer. the effects of cigerettes are documented and extensive. drugs cause extensive damage to your body.

[Sky High]

About the only good DARE did for me was leaning the different drugs I'd be taking later in life.

[EyelessCrow]

The only thing I remember from DARE is asking the officer if I could have a "bullet" in 4th grade I think. He brought me a spent rifle shell casing and everyone was jealous and started asking but he didn't bring any more lol (I don't think he was supposed to do that but I was in a private school up to 8th grade so I don't know)...

[Sinyc]

I seriously don't understand this mentality. Do you actually want to reduce drug use or just pretend that you are?

We should be looking for different ways to discourage drug use instead of sticking with a tactic that's known to not work.

Are they going to revive it with the same exact tactics and curriculum as the early 90s? Or do you possibly think they will update it for todays culture?

Your opinion doesn't change facts.

My opinion of "more drug awareness and training for people is good" isn't true? What an odd time to be alive I guess.

D.A.R.E was a failure on all fronts.

True. But that was then. I would assume they update the format to tackle todays issues? Also, it doesn't have to be DARE, but any education on drugs and teaching young folks not to do them can't hurt? Or do you disagree?