I didn’t really know anything about drugs until we got one of those colorful health pamphlets in first grade. Man, that knowledge freaked me out. The amount of health education in elementary school gradually increased until fifth grade, where it hit its climax: we took part in the Drug Abuse and Resistance Education program, which taught us to resist the temptations of drugs. Being a goody-two-shoes, I was scared straight by those DARE lessons, and I thought everyone would be too. As I became the mature, worldly high school student I am today, I realized that I had been far too naive for my own good.
According to the Center for Disease Control, 39% of high school students have drunk alcohol in the past month. And I’m sure the statistics are slightly off due to the fact that not everyone tells the truth on surveys. And as marijuana becomes legal in more and more American states, more people use it and less people start to view it as harmful (60% of high schoolers in a Monitoring the Future Survey said they didn’t see it as seriously harmful). It’s fascinating how the same things that were equated with pure evil in fifth grade have become so prevalent in the high school and college social scene. There are DARE programs all over the place. The question is, are they effectively getting people to resist drugs and the like?
Mr. Tracy, a Physical Education teacher, explains, “I’ve never taught the DARE program, but from what I know I do believe it’s a good first step to getting students to understand the problems that come with drug and alcohol abuse. Is it perfect? No, but you can’t really perfect a program like that.
“I do believe the Dare program is a critical piece to the overall puzzle,” Tracy continues, “which includes the high school health program, and reinforcement from parents. Media is also a big piece of the puzzle.”
Julie Chen ‘14 goes on to add, “Obviously, it’s better than not telling kids that drugs are bad. To be honest, though, not a lot of people really reflect on those fifth grade lessons now. The long-term influence of DARE pales in comparison to the influence of the people around you like your friends.”
Perhaps the most notable flaw in the DARE program is its reliance on scare tactics to deter drug usage. From a logical standpoint, scare tactics usually work; I don’t go voluntarily swimming with sharks because they’re intimidating and carnivorous. However, scare tactics do not always work with hormonal, eager-to-experiment, living-on-the-edge teenagers. The fact that marijuana is a mood-altering substance may pique people’s curiosity more than it turns people off. There’s a common social perception that adolescence is the time to do things without thinking them through, take part in some regrettable actions, and live life by the “yolo” paradigm. So people figure this is their one shot to get crazy, and they go for it.
Sometimes scare tactics can distort the facts as well, perhaps ignoring them or only elaborating on one side of an argument. Rana Shahani ‘16 says that “When they gave us comics to illustrate the negative effects of drugs, it didn’t really seem real. They should stick to the facts and give more real life evidence.” And that means total exposure to all the facts. Kids shouldn’t just leave the DARE program with “Drugs Will Kill You” emblazoned in their minds; I think DARE does indeed convey that message. However, that message, while largely valid, is such a generalization. DARE students have to also walk away with a complete understanding of the severity of each drug and the potential ramifications of using them in best- and worst-scenario situations.
I believe the DARE program provided me with sufficient information to make decisions that make me happy. With that said, the information doesn’t stick with everyone for the rest of their lives. Is DARE an effective deterrent for drug usage in adolescents? It provides a foundation of information, but there are ways that said foundation can improve. By reducing the usage of dramatic scare tactics and juxtaposing that with basic empirical evidence and facts, we can provide students with an objective foundation of information, and they can then hopefully formulate opinions based on that. As long as we make the DARE focus a little less on “Let’s freak them out” and a little more on “Here are the facts,” the program will be better received.