Drug Abuse Resistance
Education (D.A.R.E.)
Definition A drug use prevention program that
educates children about drugs and ways to resist
peer pressure
Date Began in Los Angeles in 1983
D.A.R.E. became a national program that aimed to prevent
children from abusing drugs in the first place. It therefore
targeted fifth and sixth grade students.
Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) was
founded in Los Angeles in 1983, the result of a joint
effort by the Los Angeles Police Department and
the Los Angeles Unified School District. In 1987,
D.A.R.E. America, a nonprofit corporation, sought
to nationalize the D.A.R.E. program, create a na-
tional training program for officers, and solicit fed-
eral funding. In the late 1980’s, the Bureau of Justice
Assistance funded five regional D.A.R.E. training
centers. By the early twenty-first century, nearly three-
quarters of all U.S. school districts had a D.A.R.E.
program in place.
Although the D.A.R.E. programs varied widely,
they all shared some specific components, including
teaching elementary school students about the dan-
gers of illegal drug use and how to resist peer pres-
sure to use drugs. The program focused primarily on
marijuana, tobacco, and alcohol. Drug Abuse Resis-
tance Education programs typically consisted of sev-
enteen forty-five-minute lessons, taught once a week
by a police officer who received—at the least—an in-
tensive two-week, eighty-hour training program on
how to teach the D.A.R.E. curriculum. The D.A.R.E.
curriculum included a focus on improving children’s
self-esteem, coping skills, assertiveness, communica-
tion skills, and decision-making skills. Students also
learned to identify positive alternatives to drug use.
They received information and built skills through a
variety of activities, including question-and-answer
sessions, role playing, workbook exercises, and group
discussions. Upon completion of the program, a
graduation ceremony was conducted.
Impact The D.A.R.E. program that began in the
early 1980’s expanded to most school districts across
the country. However, while D.A.R.E. was a better
crime-prevention program than the Just Say No cam-
paign mounted by the Ronald Reagan administra-
tion and First Lady Nancy Reagan, the majority of
studies evaluating D.A.R.E. programs revealed that
they did not reduce drug use. Initial evaluations of
the program did show positive results, but later stud-
ies indicated that people who went through D.A.R.E.
programs were actually more likely to use drugs later
in life than were people who did not. The program
remained widely praised across the country, how-
ever, and despite the lack of evidence of its effective-
ness, hundreds of millions of dollars were invested
in it.Further Reading
Bukoski, William.Meta-Analysis of Drug Abuse Prevention
Programs. Rockville, Md.: NIDA Research, 1997.
Caulkins, Jonathan, James Chiesa, and Shawn Bush-
way.An Ounce of Prevention, a Pound of Uncertainty:
The Cost-Effectiveness of School-Based Drug Prevention
Programs. Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1999.
Goldberg, Raymond.Taking Sides: Clashing Views in
Drugs and Society. Guilford, Conn.: McGraw-Hill/
Dushkin, 2005.
Sher yl L. Van HorneSee also Crime; Just Say No campaign.Dukakis, Michael
Identification Governor of Massachusetts from
1975 to 1979 and 1983 to 1991 and Democratic
presidential candidate in 1988
Born November 3, 1933; Brookline,
MassachusettsDukakis was the first Greek American to win a presidential
nomination. His campaign helped define the U.S. public’s
perceptions of liberal politicians in the late 1980’s and the
1990’s.Michael Dukakis grew up in a professional middle-
class family, the son of Greek immigrants to the
United States. His father was a doctor and his mother
a schoolteacher. Dukakis attended college in Massa-
chusetts, earning a bachelor of arts degree in 1955.
He then enlisted in the United States Army, serving
as an intelligence analyst. After two years in the
Army, he returned to Massachusetts to complete his
education. In 1960, Dukakis graduated from Har-
vard Law School, and he began practicing law in Bos-
ton. Three years later, he married Katherine “Kitty”
Dickson.The Eighties in America Dukakis, Michael 299