
DARE: The Anti-Drug Program That Never Actually Worked - ryan_j_naughton
http://priceonomics.com/dare-the-anti-drug-program-that-never-actually/
======
mratzloff
I think Randy Marsh from "South Park" had the most effective anti-marijuana
speech I've ever heard:

Stan: I've been told a lot of things about pot, but I've come to find out a
lot of those things aren't true! So I don't know what to believe!

Randy: Well, Stan, the truth is marijuana probably isn't gonna make you kill
people, and it most likely isn't gonna fund terrorism, but… well, son, pot
makes you feel fine with being bored. And it's when you're bored that you
should be learning some new skill or discovering some new science or being
creative. If you smoke pot you may grow up to find out that you aren't good at
_anything_.

~~~
FireBeyond
If you want to convince teenagers not to try (certain) drugs - have them watch
Trainspotting and Requiem For A Dream. Emotionally punishing, both of them.

~~~
MichaelGG
Eh Trainspotting has a decent chance of encouraging heroin use. At least that
was my (apparently not too uncommon) reaction to the film. Requiem seemed too
nonsensical.

And all they really do is show that you should have money and the real
problems aren't the drugs but finances and society.

~~~
stuaxo
I'm curious about how, it seemed pretty horrible what thy were going through.

~~~
user_0001
"wow the fun bits look fun, as long as I don't get addicted....."

If you are a drug user, reading / watching something that others may thing
would turn people away from drugs, a certain kind of drug user (perhaps more
adventurous) will be thinking, "yeah I'd like to try that".

Used to be like that for me and others I knew. Case in point, all the PCP
scare stories, "man gets super human strength, fights off 10 police, gets
naked". I would just focus on the "gets super human strength" \- yeah should
get some of that.

But at the end of the day, drugs are pretty stupid. Fun. But stupid. Doesn't
mean we should stop people taking them. Lots of things are stupid - really, if
you think about it. Riding your bike down mountains, any of the more "extreme"
sports, rock climbing. Anything with a risk that isn't necessary. But it is up
to the individual to weigh the risk, the "fun" reward and decide what they
want to do

------
carbide
I remember DARE. A message delivered to us by people we didn't respect. A
police officer that no one trusted and videos of teens we perceived to be
losers telling us that drugs were bad. The program seemed to focus on social
pressure not to do drugs, but social pressure is meaningless and ineffective
when it's coming from somewhere beneath you. It had the effect of making my
peers want to get high to distinguish themselves from the lower social class
who were shown to us coming out against drugs.

From personal experience, I feel that they would have been better off focusing
on the consequences to your health rather than a fumbling attempt at peer
pressure. The one class when they showed pictures of a smoker's lungs was the
only one that had any lasting positive impact on me.

~~~
guard-of-terra
It is very stupid to scare youth with health consequences. For young people,
the world "health" means nothing. It's very blank.

It means a lot for senior demographics, and so they happily push measures
involving scaring young people with health problems. Which then won't work.

~~~
djhn
That's a very good point. You can also substitute various other demographics
for young people, like lower socioeconomic classes, people heavily discounting
their future, impulsive people, etc.

Health disguised as vanity works quite well though. Case in point, current
fitness boom.

------
heimatau
As a kid during a lot of this, in the 1990s, I felt DARE was stupid and
pointless. It did nothing to discourage my peers nor myself from drugs. I did
miss out on some cool helicopter tours and some military expos but other than
that DARE was seen as a 'stupid meaningless waste of time' according to myself
and peers.

Maybe if it wasn't a top down approach, it might've worked. Like if they had
my peers dramatize drug related pressure (not watching a video of my 'peers'
[they were more like tacky uncool peers, by anyones standard]). Also, not
having cops 'teach' it. I didn't feel educated. I felt bad for the cop, as
they struggled to convince us that drugs were bad (many of my classes were
just anti-cops, so we gave each cop a difficult time, just out of spite). My
peers are among the average Americans, not a rough bunch, just anti-
authoritarian. :)

For balance, upon writing this post, I'd like to suggest a solution (not just
criticize DARE). Have specific teachers teach about drugs. Just like sex
educators aren't generalists, they focus on teaching the one subject, sex.
Let's have drug educators. I know sex educators get a lot of flack but that
flack is falling out of fashion because sex educators are effective. Let's do
that for drugs. It could educate many people on the hard drugs that are
extremely difficult to quick after one dose (crack, heroin, etc). Educating
kids on what's out there, is empowering. Hopefully we can see a healthy change
in our system.

~~~
themodelplumber
I was a teenage DARE ambassador, taught younger kids how uncool drugs were.
But that wasn't nearly as effective as the time I drew a caricature of the
class's newest drug user and a friend made 50 copies of it. Major fireworks,
major drama, and all adults who wanted to know were now in the know. I may
have almost destroyed that poor thing's life, but in doing so I believe I
found a faster-acting solution than DARE, at least for kids who didn't want
their parents to know.

~~~
oxide
that's...uncool. most people grow out of drug experimentation naturally and
never look back. you might have _actually_ fucked that person's life up,
compared to if you had done nothing. that's no solution, that's just plain
mean.

~~~
themodelplumber
Tongue in cheek solution. No one should do this. The fireworks enveloped us
all.

~~~
heimatau
Your example made me smile. Unmoderated peer pressure is more effective than
DARE. Should you be getting all that grant money? We can only dream.

------
te_platt
Proud father comment here. Last year my son's school had a DARE essay writing
contest. Knowing that I favor legalizing drugs he showed me his submission
before turning it in. I should note we had a good conversation about why I
think drug use is a very bad idea and the reasons why. His English teacher
(8th grade) gave him 100 out of 100. The following is his submission:

D.A.R.E. is a program designed to keep kids from drugs. There are problems
with D.A.R.E. though. For example, it is counter productive, gives parents a
false sense of security and it wastes money.

In 1989-1996 studies done showed that kids involved in the D.A.R.E. program
take 3-5% more drugs than kids not in the D.A.R.E. program. The program also
shows specific interest on severe drugs such as cocaine, marijuana and meth.
This can cause kids to take the drugs they learned about, making this system
completely counter productive.

The D.A.R.E. program wastes money. It is funded by taxes that you pay and
those funds are completely wasted on this program. D.A.R.E. shows absolutely
no long-term effects on kids. The money spent on D.A.R.E. could be used for
much better things than nothing.

This program gives parents a false sense of security. When parents have
children in the D.A.R.E. program they think “oh, he is already learning that
drugs are bad so I don’t need to teach him myself.” When this happens, kids
think their parents don’t care if they are doing drugs, especially when they
see other family members doing drugs without any immediate reactions they have
learned about in D.A.R.E.. When this happens they think D.A.R.E. lies about
what drugs do and start taking them because they believe there is no risk in
it.

Some people might say D.A.R.E. helps decrease drug use in kids but there are
two problems with this statement. First, it is a lie, kids who are in the dare
program have been shown to take 3-5% more drugs than kids who don’t. Second,
who cares if kids are taking drugs? Who says it’s a bad thing to take drugs?
Yes, they do kill you, but so do doughnuts! Maybe D.A.R.E. should stand for
“doughnut abuse resistance education” instead of drug abuse resistance
education”. Seeing how they both kill you its just doughnuts make you fat as
well as dead.

As you can see the D.A.R.E. program has some severe issues and needs to be
taken care of. If we destroyed the D.A.R.E. program we could save enough money
to start a new, more effective and important, program. Perhaps it could be
“Doughnut Abuse Resistance Education” to warn kids of the dangers of
doughnuts. For short we could even call it D.A.R.E., catchy, I know.

~~~
hugh4
>In 1989-1996 studies done showed that kids involved in the D.A.R.E. program
take 3-5% more drugs than kids not in the D.A.R.E. program.

Are DARE programs more likely to be targeted at kids in higher-risk groups?

~~~
c3534l
They take that into account and have even done randomized trials. DARE
unequivocally increases drug use. The primary reason (although there are many)
is thought to be that because the information is unreliable and
sensationalized, kids learn that anti-drug information is wrong and therefore
see little danger with using drugs and may even misunderstand key drug
concepts like addiction. This is true with a lot of the commercials, too. But
those often aren't really funded with any real intention of affecting drug
use, it just makes politicians look like they're doing something constructive.

------
ISL
As a counterpoint, I found DARE to be a useful and worldly course.

I probably wasn't the target audience, as an introverted sciency-type, but the
class gave me a survey of the various drugs on the market and an introduction
to a vocabulary with which I'd had no contact. When interactions with drugs
touched closer friends in subsequent years, I feel that I was better prepared
than I would've been without DARE.

Anecdotally, DARE led to my confounding our family doctor when I categorically
refused to take any cough medicine, even prescribed, that contained codeine.

So, Mr. DARE officer, your course worked for me.

~~~
stephengillie
Satire is something so rarely seen on HN. Good job.

------
sandworm101
The children were never the target audience. Programs like DARE always reflect
the wants of those who fund them, not those they try to help. Nancy Reagan and
countless othersi power believed abstinence was the best tool for most any
vice. So DARE reflected that simple mindset.

My experience of DARE was that it had little to do with drugs. It seemed
focused on getting cops into classrooms. The ones who came to our class were
always horrible. They openly lied to us about drugs, cars and even the law. We
played with them. The goal was to get the cop red-faced mad by asking simple
questions. One handed out something he called cocaine, but we instantly
discovered was just baking powder.

If any chief is reading this: Do not sent a bicycle cop in spandex shorts to
talk to boys wearing blazers and ties.

------
athrowaway27
I swear on my life, the following is 100% true.

When i was in 5th grade, a dare officer came to my class and told me about a
piece of paper i could put under my tongue and see things that werent
real(lsd)... that started a decade long journey of copious drug use.

------
tenpoundhammer
The only thing I can remember is the dare officer teaching us how to use a
bong and how to cook heroin in a spoon. I'm not sure how that's supposed to
stop us from using drugs though.

~~~
themodelplumber
Did you see the video of the DEA agent who shot himself in the foot during a
K-12 presentation?

~~~
tenpoundhammer
I did actually, I know police officers are human and capable of error, but
this is ridiculous. Why even have your gun loaded when walking into a
presentation like this?

------
Houshalter
Interesting article. But it didn't go into any details of _why_ DARE is
ineffective compared to other programs. It didn't specify what the other
programs did differently. It barely mentioned the other programs, or their
effectiveness, until the very end. I'm afraid a lot of readers might walk away
with the impression that _all_ anti-drug programs are ineffective.

Lastly it says that this reform started in the 2000's. That was 15 years ago.
So people who went through the program in the 2000's like me might not have
gotten the ineffective version. Assuming they actually made decent reforms,
which the article suggests.

~~~
stephengillie
That's just it - DARE forked the MVP. The completed product is out there,
hardly known.

------
kenesom1
D.A.R.E. was funded by Big Pharma trade groups, branches of law enforcement,
and even things like asset forfeiture [1]. It was never about public health,
but simply propaganda to justify the abuses carried out in the name of the War
on Drugs and to prop up the prison and pharma industries.

Substance abuse education can't be entrusted to the government given how easy
it is for public programs to be corrupted by interests who are opposed to
public health and safety.

[1]
[https://www.cga.ct.gov/2010/rpt/2010-R-0468.htm](https://www.cga.ct.gov/2010/rpt/2010-R-0468.htm)

------
swayvil
But it did work. Millions have an irrational antipathy towards drugs.
Indoctrination works, especially when you get em while they're young.

The effects of DARE will echo through our society for generations. Just like
the effects of a war or a natural disaster.

------
kristianrjs
I went through DARE in Canada 11 years ago when I was 9. They had an RCMP
officer come in everyday for a week for a about 30 mins and I had to write an
essay specifically on the negative effects of marijuana at the end of the
week. I really didn't even understand the concept of taking drugs to get high
and the only alcohol in my life was the beer my parents drank. It seemed like
wasted time to me.

------
Symmetry
Social norms are powerful things. Some people did a study at the Petrified
Forrest National Park on how to prevent people from stealing pieces of
fossilized wood. When they put _" Many past visitors have removed the
petrified wood from the park, changing the state of the Petrified Forest’"_ on
signs the amount of theft was much larger than anything else they tried[1]. So
if you're running a public awareness campaign emphasizing how many people
break the rules is just about the worst thing you can do. The message DARE
seemed to be giving me when I was a kid was that drug use was normal.

[1][http://www.niu.edu/user/tj0bjs1/papers/cdsbrw06.pdf](http://www.niu.edu/user/tj0bjs1/papers/cdsbrw06.pdf)

------
cardamomo
As a side effect of DARE's eventual disappearance from schools, one of my
favorite (bad) jokes no longer works with younger listeners. (Wait for the
third punchline.)

    
    
        Q: Why did the monkey fall out of the tree?
        A: It was dead.
    
        Q: Why did the second monkey fall out of the tree?
        A: It was stapled to the first one.
        
        Q: Why did the third monkey fall out of the tree?
        A: Peer pressure.
    

Alas, I'll have to save my bad jokes for other adults and come up with some
new ones for the kiddos.

EDIT: Formatting.

------
joslin01
Haha DARE. Oh yes, I remember it well -- I got all the stickers you could by
giving some bogus talks about God knows what. It made me pretty excited for
middle school where I was being trained to Just Say No to all the random kids
that would be coming up to me offering me drugs. Of course by the time I got
to middle school, my DARE officer had been fired for smoking weed in his
pimped out DARE cop car. A few years after that, I would be getting high
nearly every day in high school. Great stickers though.

------
dragonwriter
DARE is not, and never was, an anti-drug program; it was a pro-police program,
and one which was repeatedly proven effective in that role in many of the same
studies which showed it didn't do anything anti-drug, that used the "anti-
drug" label to gain support from parents, etc., because "were teaching your
kids to stay of drugs" sounds better than "we're teaching your kids to have
warm fuzzy feeling about cops".

------
NPMaxwell
A point of the article is that major investments of money and work may be
completely ineffective. Almost everyone involved in such projects perceives
first hand that the project works. The illusion is very compelling. Efforts to
stop the waste are not met with cooperative collaboration. As technology
advances, we will not have more leisure time. Instead will will spend more and
more effort working at jobs like DARE instructor.

------
jessaustin
DARE rolled out at just the right time so that I wasn't subjected to it but my
sister two years younger was. By the time I was a senior in high school, it
was clear to _everyone_ that the DARE-exposed classes were using at much
higher rates than previous classes. (Not my sister though!) This was 1994.
There is no such thing as a "temporary" government program. Programs that do
harm will do so for decades.

------
badmadrad
I actually have fond memories of DARE. But we had a really cool cop come in
the class and tell us stories that were interesting to me. Usually the stories
were very honest and real stories which I found riveting compared to the daily
repetitive humdrum of school. I don't think it was the reason I didn't do
drugs but it definitely supported and provided foundation around what my
parents would tell me.

------
ParanoidAct
I never understood the purpose of programs like this as a child. All that
effort, money, time, etc. pumped into it and somehow the only ones that ever
seemed to have any effect at all were like this
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtLHKtNOcS8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtLHKtNOcS8)
that is essentially a very good advert _for_ meth.

------
boot13
As opposed to all the ones that worked?

~~~
notgood
A trillion dollars wasted but let's keep at it! I'm sure its gonna work out
with just one trillion more. Besides, think of the consequences of suddenly
stopping! Private jails would go bankrupt and that would be anti-capitalism
and therefore anti-american.

------
chestervonwinch
Ha! I still have my DARE t-shirt hanging up in my closet somewhere. It's a
wonder that it's survived this long (and still fits!). Although it doesn't
exactly get a lot of wear, so maybe its survival isn't such a miracle :P

------
FrankenPC
Developing software has all kinds of metrics that show the team if the
progress is in the right direction, effective, and future proof.

How is it a program like DARE could have gone on for so long without peering
into their own performance metrics to see if the program had any value?

It's a rhetorical question. It's obviously political. A group of powerful
people banked their political cred on the concept and was unwilling to admit
defeat. Just like the entire drug war.

------
danschumann
It's a SELF IMAGE THING! If your mom came into your room every day and had a
talk about how SCARED SHE WAS that you were GOING TO MAKE A BILLION DOLLARS..
Likely you'd go out there and make a billion dollars. People often rebel just
for the sake of defining their own boundaries!!!!

------
pinoceros
The colloquial use of the word "anyways" nearly ruined this article for me.

