DARE Admits Failure

The General Accounting Office released a review of current research regarding alcohol and other drug abuse prevention programs, particularly DARE, on Jan. 16, 2003. The review, Youth Illicit Drug Use Prevention: DARE Long-Term Evaluations and Federal Efforts to Identify Effective Programs, GAO-03-172R, was prepared in response to a request from Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL).

The GAO report found that "In brief, the six long-term evaluations of the DARE elementary school curriculum that we reviewed found no significant differences in illicit drug use between students who received DARE in the fifth or sixth grade (the intervention group) and students who did not )the control group). Three of the evaluations reported that the control groups of students were provided other drug use prevention education. All of the evaluations suggested that DARE had no statistically significant long-term effect on preventing youth illicit drug use. Of the six evaluations we reviewed, five also reported on students' attitudes toward illicit drug use and resistance to peer pressure and found no significant differences between the intervention and control groups over the long term. Two of these evaluations found that the DARE students showed stronger negative attitudes about illicit drug use and improved social skills about illicit drug use about 1 year after receiving the program. These positive effects diminished over time." (p. 2)

Fortunately, the report noted that proven alternatives do exist. "HHS and Education have identified several programs that show evidence of effectiveness in preventing youth substance abuse and promoted their use in schools and communities. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) within HHS and Education use expert panels to review program information that the programs' developers or others submit and rank the programs on several criteria, such as the scientific rigor of their evaluations and the overall usefulness of their findings for preventing substance abuse. Only those programs that produce a consistent pattern of positive results that have been verified scientifically are recognized as effective, according to SAMHSA."

And yet, in spite of the evidence regarding DARE's failure and the existence of proven, effective prevention programs, the GAO notes that "Established in 1983, DARE operates in about 80 percent of all school districts across the United States and in numerous foreign countries. In addition to the DARE elementary school curriculum, the DARE program also includes middle school and high school curricula that reinforce lessons taught at the elementary school level," and further that "In fiscal year 2000, the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance, which supports various substance abuse prevention programs for youth, provided about $2 million for DARE regional training centers to support the training of new police officers that help deliver the DARE program lessons. Also, in fiscal year 2000, Education provided states about $439 million in grants for schools and communities under the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act (SDFSCA) of 1994. Some of the SDFSCA grant funds could have been used to support DARE. However, Education has no estimate of the amount of SDFSCA fiscal year 2000 state grant funds that were used for DARE."