The DARE Program

The Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or DARE, program was created in 1983 by the Los Angeles Police Department (Lilienfeld 2014). DARE was formulated as a primary prevention program to combat cigarette, drug, and alcohol use (collectively referred to as "substance use") for students in their final year of elementary school. The First Lady, Nancy Reagan, even adopted it as one of her causes with the "Just Say No" campaign. At one point, DARE was the "most widely disseminated school-based prevention curriculum in the United States" (Clayton 1996).

While DARE was widely deployed, it wasn't clear if the DARE program would be effective. One study sought to determine DARE's effectiveness by looking at substance use by students provided the DARE program in 23 schools compared to students in a control condition in 8 schools that received a basic drug education curriculum as part of a health unit. This study was unique in that the study looked at substance use afterwards for these same students when they were in 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th grades. The study detected no differences in the trajectory of substance use between students administered the DARE intervention and students in the control condition (Clayton 1996).

However well-designed, one study is not sufficient enough to determine if an intervention works. A meta-analysis is a study that aggregates all of the results of single studies to determine if an intervention has a positive health effect. A meta-analysis published in the American Journal of Public Health reported no meaningful differences in substance use between schools with a DARE curriculum and those receiving minimal or no substance use education. The article concurred with the previously-mentioned longitudinal study, "based on two experimental studies for which reliable information 1 and 2 years after implementation are available, there is no evidence that DARE's effects are activated when subjects are older" (Ennet 1994). Perhaps bitingly, the article concluded, "DARE's limited influence on adolescent drug use behavior contrasts with the program's popularity and prevalence."

Other follow-up studies confirmed these findings (Dukes 1996, Dukes 1997), but one study did note that DARE participants were less likely to use "more deviant drugs" which was defined as inhalants, cocaine, or LSD (Dukes 1997). One study even looked at participants ten years after the DARE program and said that in "no case did the DARE group have a more successful outcome than the comparison group" (Lynam 1999).

So if DARE was so popular, why didn't it work? The DARE program was mainly educational, and effective educational programs typically enroll students as peer leaders so that students can get actual experience with peers role-playing (Lilienfeld 2014). The program also didn't give any attention to harm reduction, or more simply, steps that people can take to be more safe if they decide to engage in substance use.

The substance use landscape has changed significantly since DARE was piloted, including the abuse of opioid and other prescription pills, legal recreational marijuana in many states, the advent and popularization of e-cigarettes, and the adulteration of many illicit drugs with fentanyl and other powerful synthetic opioids. The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) first reported drug overdose deaths in 1999 and annually thereafter. In 1999, there were less than 20,000 deaths from a drug overdose. By 2023, the number of reported drug overdose deaths increased over five-fold to 105,000 deaths (NIDA 2024). So while DARE didn't work, evidence-based strategies such as contingency management, needle exchange, and tighter control of precursor chemicals to make synthetic opioids are essential to combat substance use.

References

1. Lilienfeld SO, Arkowitz H. "Why 'Just Say No' Doesn't Work" Scientific American. Published January 1, 2014. Available at: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-just-say-no-doesnt-work/. Accessed July 9, 2025.

2. Clayton RR, Cattarello AM, Johnstone BM. The effectiveness of Drug Abuse Resistance Education (project DARE): 5-year follow-up results. Prev Med. 1996 May-Jun;25(3):307-18. doi: 10.1006/pmed.1996.0061. PMID: 8781009.

3. Ennett ST, Tobler NS, Ringwalt CL, Flewelling RL. How effective is drug abuse resistance education? A meta-analysis of Project DARE outcome evaluations. Am J Public Health. 1994 Sep;84(9):1394-401. doi: 10.2105/ajph.84.9.1394. PMID: 8092361; PMCID: PMC1615171.

4. Dukes RL, Ullman JB, Stein JA. Three-year follow-up of Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.). Eval Rev. 1996 Feb;20(1):49-66. doi: 10.1177/0193841X9602000103. PMID: 10182199.

5. Dukes RL, Stein JA, Ullman JB. Long-term impact of Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.). Results of a 6-year follow-up. Eval Rev. 1997 Aug;21(4):483-500. doi: 10.1177/0193841X9702100404. PMID: 10183294.

6. Lynam DR, Milich R, Zimmerman R, Novak SP, Logan TK, Martin C, Leukefeld C, Clayton R. Project DARE: no effects at 10-year follow-up. J Consult Clin Psychol. 1999 Aug;67(4):590-3. doi: 10.1037//0022-006x.67.4.590. PMID: 10450631.

7. National Institute on Drug Abuse. Drug Overdose Deaths: Facts and Figures. Last Updated: August 2024. Available at: https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates#Fig1. Accessed July 9, 2025.