TRUTH OR DARE? RETHINKING SCHOOL DRUG EDUCATION IN AMERICA.

Anyone who went to school in the United States from the late ’80s to early 2000s is likely familiar with the DARE program. For decades American schoolchildren across the nation sat through police-led lectures on how to “just say no” to drugs and alcohol. DARE capitalized on waves of federal funding to ensure DARE-trained police officers were in nearly every U.S. classroom. The problem was, though, DARE, and programs like it, didn’t work. DARE was as ineffective as it was widespread. Those who underwent hours of DARE lectures likely remember the program as a massive failure. And to this day, the failures of the DARE program persist: misinformation on drugs and drug users abounds, children are lied to or kept in the dark on valuable, life-saving information, and police officers run rampant through schools arresting kids. These failures persist because American schools have refused to leave behind the original, unsuccessful DARE program. After DARE was exposed as an educational failure, the program underwent a rebranding as “DARE: keepin’ it REAL,” which is now spreading across the country. But all that has changed is the name. This new DARE still relies on police-officer instruction, stereotyping students, and at-best-untested curricula. This Note highlights the many similarities between the DARE of thirty years ago and the DARE of today and suggests that DARE’s refusal to change from its roots has and will keep the program ineffective. Further, this Note discusses more promising pedagogical approaches to school-based drug education and how those programs can be advocated for, incentivized, and implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]