Drug Abuse Resistance Education Research Articles

Recanting of substance use reports in a longitudinal prevention study

We analyzed recanting of substance use reports for lifetime use of alcohol, alcohol to get drunk, cigarettes, marijuana and cocaine in an 8-wave panel study designed to evaluate the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program in the State of Illinois. Although this phenomenon has been identified elsewhere, the current analysis of recanting is a unique attempt to track this behavior over the entire course of adolescence. Overall, rates of recanting for specific drugs were extremely high, ranging from 45% for lifetime reports of alcohol use to 81% for lifetime reports of cocaine. Most recanting occurred in the wave immediately following the wave of first disclosure. Paralleling results from other studies, race/ethnicity was an important correlate of recanting in both bivariate and multivariate analyses. African American respondents had higher rates of recanting than White subjects. Even after controlling for the number of follow-up waves, the later the wave of first disclosed lifetime drug use, the lower the probability that drug use would be recanted ever (for all substances) or in the wave immediately following first disclosure (for reports of ever having been drunk or for lifetime marijuana or cocaine use). Alternative causes for this phenomenon are discussed. Implications for the design and interpretation of multiwave school-based panel surveys targeted toward adolescents are also addressed.

GAO: DARE Does Not Work

A thorough review of the most widely used school-based substance abuse prevention program in the United States, Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE), found that the program does not prevent drug use or change students' attitudes toward drugs.

Adolescent vulnerability: measurement and priority setting.

The choices that policy makers and parents make or advocate reflect some amalgam of their values (about what matters) and beliefs (about what works). This paper casts these youth-specific choices in the general terms of priority-setting research and practice. One goal of these general approaches is increasing the expected value of invested resources. A second is clarifying the roles of social policy and social science in decision making both for choices that have become norms and for new proposals. A third goal is revealing the value assumptions embedded in ostensibly objective analyses clarifying the extent to which their conclusions are predetermined by their framing. For example analyses focused on problematic end states (e.g. risk behaviors adverse health outcomes) can divert attention from common sources which contribute to multiple end states without being the primary determinant of any (e.g. low literacy low-birth weight). End-state analyses also divert attention from any value that programs have independent of their effects on risk outcomes such as making a social statement or contributing to those who implement them. Abstinence programs and Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) for example might be rationally justified on those grounds even if they had little direct effect on teens sexuality or drug use. Whether they should be depends on what one values. (modified excerpt)

SPIT TOBACCO PREVENTION AND CESSATION COUNSELING: STATEWIDE SURVEY OF HEALTH-CARE PROFESSIONALS AND EDUCATORS

The use of spit tobacco (ST) products is a serious public health problem in the United States. Use of ST is associated with increased risk of oral cancer, gastrointestinal neoplasms, and other deleterious effects. The prevalence of ST use among adolescents is high in many areas, especially in predominantly rural states (e.g., South Dakota, Montana). Community-wide efforts aimed at prevention and cessation of ST use among young people are needed. A total of 4089 clinicians and educators were surveyed in 1998 regarding their personal ST use and several other characteristics associated with ST prevention and cessation counseling. Educators reported significantly higher rates of ST use than did clinicians. The most prevalent barriers to ST counseling among clinicians were perceptions of patient resistance to referral to ST cessation programs and the lack of community services that effectively treat ST use. Lack of training was a major barrier to ST counseling among all educator subgroups. Although knowledge of the health effects of ST was fairly high among all subgroups, more than 10% of dentists and dental hygienists failed to report that ST use causes gum disease. Most clinicians believed that they should demonstrate leadership in efforts aimed at ST control; however, only 64% of dentists believed that repeated counseling attempts were necessary with patients who continued to use ST. Compared with clinicians, educators generally felt less obligated to provide ST counseling. Eighty percent of physicians reported counseling activities, but fewer than half of the dental professionals did. More than 75% of Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) officers reported having delivered ST counseling, whereas only 4% of volunteer leaders did. Fewer than 50% of educators believed that the ST program they taught was effective. Training of various professionals in ST interventions may benefit from emphasizing different issues (reduction of personal ST use, knowledge, commitment, etc.). Our findings have implications for community-based efforts aimed at controlling ST use among young people.

Superintendents' Intentions toward DARE: Results from a Statewide Survey

This investigation assessed superintendents' beliefs and intentions toward Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) and drug prevention programming, using a modified Theory of Planned Behavior as a framework. The study's primary purpose was to predict intentions toward future reliance on DARE. In June 2000 an anonymous mail survey was sent to all 611 public school superintendents in Ohio. The response rate was 71.5%. DARE was used by 85 to 87% of the state's public school districts. A large majority of the superintendents (88.2%) reported that they intended to rely on the program in the future. Most held either incorrect information about DARE's efficacy (29.0%) or acknowledged that that they were uninformed about DARE outcome research (33.6%). A multiple logistic regression analysis found that intention to use DARE in the future was positively associated with normative beliefs about community support for the program and negatively related with perceptions of their ability to replace drug prevention curricula in their district. The findings suggest that superintendents' positive intentions toward DARE were formed to avert conflict with adults in the school district and community. The dissemination of evidence-based drug prevention strategies will likely require stimulating parental demand for efficacious programming, in addition to educating school officials.

Youth, drugs and resilience education.

Billions of dollars are spent annually on school-based drug education programs, with youthful drug use remaining near peak levels since the 1980s. Institutional, policy, and program evidence presented here suggests that although primarily delivered in schools, the educational community rarely participates in the development of drug education; and despite the finding that "no-use" programs such as Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) or Life-Skills Training (LST) are likely ineffective, they continue to thrive in schools. This may be explained by insufficient educational participation and scientific discourse considering these issues; and the role of interest group politics, such as the symbiotic relationship between government, researchers, and the tobacco industry, in drug education. In addition to this evidence, resilience based program alternatives, evaluation, and implications are discussed.

Parents' perceptions of a school-based prevention education program.

There are few studies of parents' views about prevention education in general, or about specific prevention education activities. Yet, their perceptions are important because families are a primary socialization source, and because parents' opinions can either reinforce or countermand the message of prevention education programs. This article is an analysis of parents' views of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program based on a statewide survey of adults from rural, suburban, and urban communities who had a child participate in the program within the past year. Parent involvement and knowledge of D.A.R.E. was high. Generally, parents were very positive about D.A.R.E., especially when they viewed the D.A.R.E. officer as an effective educator. This article suggests that much more research on parents' views and support of prevention education program needs to be conducted, especially within the context of how their perceptions may mediate the influence of the prevention effort on young people's attitudes and behaviors about substance use.

The Minnesota DARE PLUS Project: creating community partnerships to prevent drug use and violence.

The research community has criticized Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) because the extant literature indicates a lack of evidence that the elementary school program prevents drug use. Yet D.A.R.E. continues to be the most widely implemented drug use prevention program in the United States and has considerable community support. To date, the junior high D.A.R.E. program has not been evaluated. The Minnesota DARE PLUS Project is a randomized trial of 24 schools and communities. During 1999-2001, students in eight schools will receive the junior high D.A.R.E. curriculum in 7th grade; eight schools also will receive the curriculum as well as additional parent involvement, peer leadership, and community components in the 7th and 8th grades; and eight schools will serve as controls. This article describes the background and conceptualization, the curriculum and additional intervention components, and the evaluation methods of the DARE PLUS Project.

Developing Local Police and Federal Law Enforcement Partnerships: G.R.E.A.T. as a Case Study of Policy Implementation

This article deals with the evolution of the Gang Resistance Education and Training program (G.R.E.A.T.), from conceptual idea to policy implementation. In late May 1991, U.S. Senator Dennis DeConcini attended a "town hall meeting" of Phoenix-area police agencies. At that meeting, informal discussions about a law enforcement-based anti-gang program similar to Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) was discussed. By the spring of 1992, a prototype program was presented to a school in the Phoenix area. Within months of this offering, the resulting program was being offered in schools across the nation. From that point to the present, there seems to be little disagreement as to what has transpired. It is toward the origins of the program that this article is directed, and to the sometimes tortuous path that the program and its progenitors followed to go from idea to implementation of G.R.E.A.T. Ultimately, our goal is to compare and contrast this instance of intergovernmental cooperation with the extant literature and determine the extent to which the creation of G.R.E.A.T. as a case study adds to our understanding of how criminal justice policy moves from an idea to implementation.

Project DARE: no effects at 10-year follow-up.

The present study examined the impact of Project DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), a widespread drug-prevention program, 10 years after administration. A total of 1,002 individuals who in 6th grade had either received DARE or a standard drug-education curriculum, were reevaluated at age 20. Few differences were found between the 2 groups in terms of actual drug use, drug attitudes, or self-esteem, and in no case did the DARE group have a more successful outcome than the comparison group. Possible reasons why DARE remains so popular, despite the lack of documented efficacy, are offered.

The Effects of Prevention Programs on Drug Use in Korean Adolescents

【Background and purpose : Drug abuse is one of the most serious problems among the Korean adolescents today and has been associated with delinquent behavior in adolescents. The number of adolescents who abuse drugs is increasing yearly. Solutions to the problem, however, have not been well developed. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of a drug use prevention program which was developed by researchers. The program was a modified DARE(Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program for Korean adolescents. Methods: This study used an experimental, one-group pretest-posttest design with a convenience sample of 122 middle school students who were at one middle school located in Seoul. Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire where ‘knowledge and attitude about drug use’, ‘social skill’, and ‘self-esteem’ were measured. The program had 12 sessions to improve knowledge and attitudes towards drugs, decision making skills, social resistance skills, management of stress and self-esteem of students. Teaching strategies for each session were varied lectures, group discussion. role-playing, question-and-answer sessions and audiovisual materials. Paired t-test was used to analyze the differences between the pre- and post-test scores on knowledge of and attitudes towards drug use, social skills, and self-esteem. Results : There were significant differences in knowledge and attitudes about drug use between pretest and post-test (p＜.05), but no significant differences in social skill and self-esteem(p＞.05). Conclusion: Our results showed that the drug use prevention program was not effective in promoting social-skill and self-esteem of Korean adolescents. These findings might be due to the respondents being in the period of early adolescence (puberty) and not being good at group discussion. So, further study is needed to develop a drug use prevention program appropriate to students 9 and 10 years old, and to encourge small group discussion.】

Assessing the Effects of School-Based Drug Education: A Six-Year Multilevel Analysis of Project D.A.R.E.

A randomized longitudinal field experiment was conducted to estimate the short- and long-term effects of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program (D.A.R.E.) on students' attitudes, beliefs, social skills, and drug use behaviors. Students from urban, suburban, and rural schools (N = 1,798) were followed for more than six years, with surveys administered each year from 6th through 12th grades. Teachers were also surveyed annually to measure students' cumulative exposure to supplemental (post-D.A.R.E.) drug education. Multilevel analyses (random-effects ordinal regression) were conducted on seven waves of posttreatment data. The results indicate that D.A.R.E. had no long-term effects on a wide range of drug use measures, nor did it show a lasting impact on hypothesized mediating variables, with one exception. Previously documented short-term effects had dissipated by the conclusion of the study. Some D.A.R.E.-by-community interactions were observed: Urban and rural students showed some benefits, whereas suburban students experienced small but significant increases in drug use after participation in D.A.R.E.

Drug Prevention and the DARE Programme in Britain

An increasing interest in drug prevention has led to the growth in various programmes, most of which have been imported from the United States. The programmes receiving the most acclaim are the so-called resistance training programmes, of which Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) is the most widely used whether in America or elsewhere. It has also been surrounded by controversy. Resistance training programmes are given to schoolchildren, the aim of which is to teach them skills to resist pressure to take drugs. DARE has recently been introduced in Britain in Nottinghamshire; another similar programme, Chemical Abuse Resolution Lies in Education (Project Charlie), operates in Hackney, London. The aim of this paper is to review the data on the effectiveness of these programmes. The conclusion is that drug resistance programmes have had a mixed response in the US, but that Project Charlie has had reasonable success in London and that DARE in Nottinghamshire needs a long-term evaluation to determine its effectiveness. Such an evaluation could have an impact on drugs prevention policy over the next decade.

Cumulative effects of prevention education on substance use among 11th grade students in Ohio.

This article examines participation in school-based prevention activities from a statewide sample of 11th grade students in Ohio. About 42% of subjects indicated they had never been involved in a prevention education activity. Differences existed in mean number of activities by both gender and White/nonWhite status. Popular prevention education activities included participation in D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) at elementary, junior high, and senior high levels, "Just Say No Clubs"; Quest; and Red Ribbon Week. Only a small proportion of youth participated exclusively in any one of these activities. An association existed between student participation in prevention education and level of drug involvement. Students in each activity had lower mean scores for drug involvement when compared to students who had never participated in a prevention education activity. Also, the lowest mean scores occurred among students who had participated in multiple prevention activities.

Attitudes towards drugs among school youths: An evaluation of the Swedish DARE programme

Illicit drug use among high school students is on the rise in Sweden as well as in other countries. This fact has put high demand on the police, who are not only expected to reduce the availability of drugs but also to take part in the effort to affect the students' demand for drugs. The aim of this study was to analyse what impact students' demand for and perceived availability of illicit drugs in the seventh grade have on their attitudes towards and experience with drugs in the eighth grade. Moreover, the purpose was to investigate to what extent a specific police-led school-based drug prevention programme, the project DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), affects students' attitudes and experiences regarding drugs. As a part in an ongoing evaluation of the Swedish DARE programme (called VÅGA) about 1,800 students in 22 Swedish junior high schools on three occasions anonymously answered questions about their attitudes towards and experiences with drugs. Contextual analysis was used to estimate the significance of various student-level risk-factors (such as family bonding, school involvement, and peer activity) and school aggregated contextual factors. The results show that students' curiosity and perceived availability of illicit drugs at the school-level have statistically significant effects on drug-related attitudes and experiences at the individual-student level. The attitudes towards and experiences with drugs in the eighth grade of students who participated in the DARE programme in the seventh grade were not different from those students who did not participate in the programme. A brief discussion of what measures the police should conduct in order to block the availability of drugs and what their role in schools should be are finally presented.

Demand for and Supply of Drugs among School Youth. An Evaluation of the Swedish Dare Program

Illicit drug use among high school students is on the rise in Sweden as well as in other countries. This fact has put high demand on the police, who are not only expected to reduce the availability of drugs but also to take part in the effort to affect the students' demand for drugs. The aim of this study was to analyze what impact students' demand for and perceived availability of illicit drugs in the seventh grade have on their attitudes towards and experience with drugs in the eigth grade. Moreover, the purpose was to investigate to what extent a specific police-led school-based drug prevention program, the project DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), affects students' attitudes and experiences regarding drugs. As a part in an ongoing evaluation of the Swedish DARE program (called VÅGA) about 1 800 students in 22 Swedish junior high schools on three occasions anonymously answered questions about their attitudes towards and experiences with drugs. Contextual analysis was used to estimate the significance of various student-level risk-factors (such as family bonding, school involvement, and peer activity) and school aggregated contextual factors. The results show that students' curiosity and perceived availability of illicit drugs at the school-level have statistically significant effects on drug-related attitudes and experiences at the individual-student level. The attitudes towards and experiences with drugs in the eigth grade of students who participated in the DARE program in the seventh grade were not different from those of students who did not participate in the program. A brief discussion of what measures the police should conduct in order to block the availability of drugs and what their role in schools should be are finally presented.

Educators' perceptions of the D.A.R.E. program.

This study examines the perceptions of educators about the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program, based on the results of a statewide survey among 286 fifth and sixth grade teachers and principals. Educators gave their highest ratings to teacher/officer interaction, the role playing exercises, and the graduation ceremony. Ratings of overall program quality and the impact of the program on students were both high. Block regression analysis was used to examine factors predictive of educators' views of D.A.R.E. D.A.R.E. program elements were the most important factors explaining variance in educators' ratings of over-all program quality and program impact on students. Altogether, 54 percent and 38 percent of the variance in both dependent variables were explained. The results are discussed in terms of the important role teachers and principals play as stakeholders in prevention education.

Long-term impact of Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.). Results of a 6-year follow-up.

The long-term effectiveness of Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) was assessed by contrasting drug use and other D.A.R.E.-related attitudinal latent variables among 356 twelfth-grade students who had received the program in the 6th grade with 264 others who did not receive it. A prior study of these subjects when they were in 9th grade had shown no significant differences. A follow-up survey in 12th grade assessed central D.A.R.E. concepts such as self-esteem, police bonds, delay of experimentation with drugs, and various forms of drug use. Although the authors found no relationship between prior D.A.R.E. participation and later alcohol use, cigarette smoking, or marijuana use in 12th grade, there was a significant relationship between earlier D.A.R.E. participation and less use of illegal, more deviant drugs (e.g., inhalants, cocaine, LSD) in a development sample but not in a validation sample. Findings from the two studies suggest a possible sleeper effect for D.A.R.E. in reference to the use of harder drugs, especially among teenage males.

How D.A.R.E. works: an examination of program effects on mediating variables.

The D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program has relied on a curriculum that addresses a variety of psychosocial processes thought to be related to substance use and potentially modifiable through programmatic intervention. This study examines 12 postulated mediators of substance use prevention programs to determine the degree to which D.A.R.E. has an effect on mediators and the degree to which those effects account for behavioral outcomes of the program. Results indicate that the primary effect of D.A.R.E. is a change in commitment to not use substances. This change significantly mediates behavioral effects. However, the magnitude of D.A.R.E.'s effect on the mediator is relatively small. Other mediators that offer strong potential paths for intervention effectiveness are not affected by the program. These results suggest that in order to achieve prevention effectiveness, the curriculum used in the D.A.R.E. program needs to be replaced with one that targets and meaningfully changes appropriate mediating variables.

Students and Substances: Social Power in Drug Education

A statewide evaluation of a school-based substance use and drug education program called California Drug, Alcohol, and Tobacco Education (DATE) was conducted from 1991 to 1994 for the State Department of Education. Researchers used multiple methods to evaluate DATE programs such as Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) and Red Ribbon Weeks. Analysis of 143 field interviews with educators and administrators, and 40 student focus groups (grades 5–12) revealed that educators attempted to prevent student substance use by providing a “no-substance-use” message through high fear appeal; offering rewards; and attempting to improve students’ self-esteem by teaching refusal skills. Student interviews indicate program dissatisfaction and service-related cognitive dissonance. Random survey results (5,045 students in grades 7–12) showed that over 40% of California’s students were “not at all” influenced by educators or drug education programs, 15% were influenced “a lot” or “completely,” and nearly 70% described a neutral to negative affect toward educators. Regression analyses showed that survey responses did not depend on self-reported substance use, nor the number of drug programs received (among other factors). This large-scale, multi-modal evidence suggests that drug, alcohol, and tobacco education programs had no positive influence on a majority of students’ substance-use decisions, and had other effects counter to those intended. This was especially true during the period when youth are faced with substance-use decisions, grades 7–12. Given the similarity of many U.S. drug education programs, student rejection of DATE programs is significant. Results and the need for a conceptual shift in how students are viewed and educated about substances are discussed.