“The Drug Abuse Resistance Education Program is 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” (Hanson 1). Since D.A.R.E. makes appearances in many schools all over the world it’s important to be aware of how affective this program really is. Despite the arguments that D.A.R.E. programs reach out to kids at a young age and prevent many from turning to a life of drug abuse, it is clear that D.A.R.E. is failing because teens are more inclined to listen to their peers than adults, it costs a lot of money to upkeep, it shows no signs of long term effectiveness, and the program can actually increase drug use. D.A.R.E. stands for Drug Abuse
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It is shown that “Evidence suggests that school-based programs can achieve short-term success in preventing the initiation of smoking among young people...” (Bjornlund 72). This success is short term because the D.A.R.E. program does not continue on throughout schooling and kids will think less and less about D.A.R.E. and what they learned as time passes. Furthermore, “ Where it has been implemented, the program has reduced alcohol use by eighth graders by nearly a quarter and binge drinking by 37 percent…” (Currie-Mcgee 67). As it was stated before the prevention of drugs and alcohol at a young age is very important because those who subside from drugs and or alcohol until they are older have a less chance of becoming dependent. On the other hand, if a large sum of money is being spent on this program then it should have more than just a short-term effect. One police chief of D.A.R.E. “unashamedly promoted spending 3.7 million on DARE in the city”. (Hanson 2) That is quite a large amount of cash that was spent on a single cities program, which was also put to waste by the ineffective program. Also, “The estimated cost of D.A.R.E. annually is already $1[billion] to 1.3 billion.” (Hanson 5). This amount of cash is being spent on a program that does not stick with the kids. Teens are still shedding what they remember from their days in D.A.R.E. and are no longer worried about the
It is shown that “Evidence suggests that school-based programs can achieve short-term success in preventing the initiation of smoking among young people...” (Bjornlund 72). This success is short term because the D.A.R.E. program does not continue on throughout schooling and kids will think less and less about D.A.R.E. and what they learned as time passes. Furthermore, “ Where it has been implemented, the program has reduced alcohol use by eighth graders by nearly a quarter and binge drinking by 37 percent…” (Currie-Mcgee 67). As it was stated before the prevention of drugs and alcohol at a young age is very important because those who subside from drugs and or alcohol until they are older have a less chance of becoming dependent. On the other hand, if a large sum of money is being spent on this program then it should have more than just a short-term effect. One police chief of D.A.R.E. “unashamedly promoted spending 3.7 million on DARE in the city”. (Hanson 2) That is quite a large amount of cash that was spent on a single cities program, which was also put to waste by the ineffective program. Also, “The estimated cost of D.A.R.E. annually is already $1[billion] to 1.3 billion.” (Hanson 5). This amount of cash is being spent on a program that does not stick with the kids. Teens are still shedding what they remember from their days in D.A.R.E. and are no longer worried about the