DARE KIDS TAKE MORE DRUGS

The federal government itself doesn't list DARE among the programs
that research has found to be effective. An independent review of
prevention programs by the Drug Strategies Institute gives it a low
grade, rating many other programs higher. Two studies have shown that
among suburban teens, DARE kids take more drugs than their
counterparts not exposed to the program.

You cannot find a single peer-reviewed study that shows that it works,
only some polls of former students who say they liked it without
adding anything about their relative level of drug use.

It is unfair to give equal weight to statistics from non-scientific
sources and to an entire body of social science literature. If the
media don't make clear why replicated scientific research should be
considered more important than statistics produced by biased sources
with political interests, how can the public be expected to make
policy decisions based on what works, rather than what looks like it
should work?

Maia Szalavitz,
Manhattan