DARE also soon won a $140,000 grant from the Department of Justice to expand the program to the national level. Although it drew criticism from the scientific community, DARE earned NIJ funding as a result of the study. In 1986, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) published the first independent review of DARE, reporting that the program had short-term results. DARE became ‘a rallying symbol to do something positive about the drug abuse problem.'” “ eager to find an easy solution to the problem of juvenile drug abuse. It was also popular among politicians and bureaucrats, who saw DARE as a way to be proactive about, “The Drug Problem.” From the Reason Magazine: The program was popular among parents and students from its inception. By the mid-nineties, it was a national organization with multi-million dollar annual revenue. Within a few years, DARE was a regular fixture in LA schools. When the school opened in September 1983, the LAPD took to the classroom to both teach kids about the dangers of substance abuse, boost their self-esteem, and help them practice “just saying no” (a la Nancy Reagan). In 1993, there were two main versions of SMART: one that focused on developing personal goals and self esteem, and another that focused on resisting things like peer pressure and advertisements. Without Johnson’s oversight, Rich took the SMART curriculum and patterned her own off of it. Reason Magazine reported, “Though sympathetic to Rich’s dilemma, Johnson had serious objections to handing an experimental educational program over to the local police.” The idea of police officers in the classroom turned off some of SMART’s original authors, including the head of the research team, Andy Johnson. When it comes to drugs, they’re more credible than a teacher.”
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Police officers are believable on this subject. As she told the LA Times, “There’s a gap between the street and the classroom. Rich agreed with him, on the grounds that cops are more familiar with criminal culture. Research on drug prevention education was already underway at USC, under the title “SMART.” But there was a catch - Gates wanted DARE to be taught by police officers themselves, not doctors or teachers. Ruth Rich, the district’s health education specialist, was tasked with selecting the first curriculum. The LAPD, in conjunction with the local rotary club and the LA Unified School District (LAUSD), came up with the Drug Abuse Resistance Education Program, DARE (also, incidentally, a pun with Chief Daryl Gates’ first name.)ĭr. “We had ‘buy programs’ in the schools where undercover officers would buy drugs from students. The story goes that when Gates noticed that the number of drug busts on school campuses was increasing, he had the idea to focus on preventative education instead of punishment. Daryl Gates, the LA Police Department (LAPD) Chief of Police, helped create the program, and became its first figurehead. The original “Officer DARE”: DARE’s founder, LAPD Chief Daryl Gates, later became infamous for his handling of the Rodney King RiotsĭARE got its beginnings in the city of Los Angeles in the early 1980s. The program’s eventual reform was the result of a long and hard battle between evidence-based research, and popular opinion. Scientists knew DARE was ineffective relatively early on, but the program grew anyways. In fact, there’s some well-regarded research that some groups of students were actually more likely to do drugs if they went through DARE. Students who went through DARE weren’t any less likely to do drugs than the students who didn’t. There was just one problem: DARE didn’t work. It had spiffy, 90s branded swag, and a baritone-voiced mascot, “Daren the Lion.”
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At its peak, DARE was practiced in 75% of American schools, and cost hundreds of millions of dollars to run. Through the 1980s and the 1990s, DARE swelled from a tiny local program to a massive, and massively expensive, national campaign against drugs in schools.
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Self esteem and resistance were two major cornerstones of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education Program, also known as DARE. In addition to teaching the other students, the officer was also building up your self esteem. Then you went back to your seat, and the officer would go over the things you did well in the exercise, so the class could learn by your example. Your classmates might have applauded, at the officer/teacher’s prompting. “Not doing drugs is cool,” was your reply. Impressed with your delivery, he’d decided to step up the simulated peer pressure. Luckily for you, you were savvy enough to understand that this wasn’t an earnest offer. “Hey,” he might have said, “Want to meet up behind the gym after school and get high?” If you went to grade school in the 1980s or 90s, chances are good you were publicly offered drugs at school by a uniformed police officer. DARE, the popular drug education program, had no measurable effect on drug use.