A new report on adolescent drug use prevention produced by the General Accounting Office (GAO), the non-partisan investigative arm of the U.S. Congress, concludes that the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program is ineffective.  According to the GAO report, “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).”   DARE operates in about 80 percent of all school districts across the United States and in numerous foreign countries.  Established in 1983, DARE is the brainchild of controversial former Los Angeles Police Department chief Darryl Gates, who once went on record as stating that "causal drug users should be taken out and shot."

Every year, the federal government spends billions of dollars to promote ineffective, abstinence-only curricula like DARE.  Despite these spending levels, these programs fail to deter youthful experimentation.  According to a recent government survey, 54% of high school seniors have experimented with an illegal drug. Though every parent wishes and hopes that their children abstain from drug experimentation, the statistic above shows the majority of teenagers will experiment, despite 20 years of "Just Say No" messages.  Teenagers have become skeptical of the often-exaggerated messages and scare tactics relayed through DARE and other prevention programs.  As an alternative to DARE, the Drug Policy Alliance created the Safety First project in 2002.  Safety First is dedicated to providing parents of adolescents with honest, science-based information about drugs and drug education. 

To learn more about adolescent drug use please visit:
http://www.safety1st.org