D.A.R.E. Works!
A D.A.R.E. Evaluation with 3,150 Ohio 11th Graders
By: Joseph F. Donnermeyer, Ph.D., Associate Professor
and G. Howard Phillips, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus
Ohio State University
With nearly 9 million students participating last year, D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance
Education) has become the most widely adopted substance abuse prevention education program
in the U.S. today. A statewide evaluation of D.A.R.E. in Ohio was conducted in the Spring
of 1995 among 3,150 11th graders from 34 schools. The purpose of the research was to
examine the possible long-term influences of D.A.R.E., rather than the short-term impacts
that many of the earlier evaluations of D.A.R.E. had attempted to do. The sample included
11th graders who participated in D.A.R.E. at the elementary level only, and a group of
11th graders who were involved in D.A.R.E. at the elementary level in addition to
participating in either or both the junior high school or senior high school level
D.A.R.E. programs. Finally, a control group of 11th graders who had never participated in
D.A.R.E. was included for the purposes of comparison.
The Ohio evaluation utilized the American Drug and Alcohol Survey (ADAS), which is a
product of the Rocky Mountain Behavioral Sciences Institute in Ft. Collins, Colorado. ADAS
was developed through grants provided by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The survey
has been thoroughly field tested and has been used in assessing substance use in over
1,200 schools across the nation. It includes 30 plus different internal checks on
exaggeration and inconsistency of answers from respondents. In addition, the results of
ADAS are the same as other national epidemiologies of adolescent alcohol and other drug
use, including the High School Senior Survey (Monitoring the Future) from the University
of Michigan.
The results indicated that 11th grade students who had been through D.A.R.E. at the
elementary level, and had received one or more reinforcements by participating in either
or both a junior high or senior high school D.A.R.E. program (i.e., "multiple
D.A.R.E." exposures), showed the lowest level of drug involvement. These results were
based on classifying the sample into three "risk" groups for the use of alcohol
and other drugs. In the "multiple D.A.R.E." group of 11th graders, 73 percent
were classified as low risk, 17 percent as moderate risk, and 10 percent as high risk. In
addition, 11th graders who had been through only the elementary D.A.R.E. program were more
likely to be in the low risk group than 11th graders who had never participated in
D.A.R.E. Eleventh graders who had never participated in D.A.R.E. were most likely to be
classified in the high risk drug use category (15 percent).
These three risk categories were developed from a 34 point drug involvement scale
contained within the standard ADAS measuring instrument. Low risk youth included those who
had never consumed alcohol or other drugs, and those who may have experimented once with
drugs or who consumed alcohol but only once or twice. The moderate risk category included
those who consumed alcohol on a more regular basis or who used marijuana and other drugs
on an occasional basis, but not recently. High risk youth included those who were either
heavy alcohol users and/or regular users of drugs.
D.A.R.E. 11th graders also scored better in several other important areas when compared
to non-D.A.R.E. 11th graders:
D.A.R.E. 11th graders showed higher resistance to peer encouragement to use drugs than
non-D.A.R.E. 11th graders. For Example, D.A.R.E. students were more likely to score higher
on a scale that measures if they had friends who would stop them from getting drunk and
using various drugs. D.A.R.E. students also scored higher on a scale that indicated their
ability to say no to close friends. Additionally, those who had been in D.A.R.E. were more
likely to indicate that they would stop friends from using drugs.
In addition, another positive outcome of Ohio's statewide D.A.R.E. evaluation was the
finding that 11th graders who had participated in the program scored higher on a scale
measuring how often they talk to family members about the dangers of drugs.
D.A.R.E. students were more likely to perceive the police as helpful and as people who
cared about youth, based on a scale measuring respect for police officers. This finding is
consistent with the Bureau of Justice Assistance publication, "Community Policing and
D.A.R.E.: A Practitioner's Perspective. (Carter, 1995)." It has become increasingly
evident that D.A.R.E. provides important linkages to the community that were previously
weak or nonexistent . . . Removing the D.A.R.E. officer from the patrol car allows him or
her to interact closely with school administrators, teachers, parents, community members,
and young people over an extended period of time, thus developing rapport that promotes
communication and problem solving on issues that extend beyond the D.A.R.E.
curriculum." These results are encouraging for D.A.R.E. and for alcohol and drug
prevention education programs in general. Prevention education is not a cure-all for the
problems of youth in regard to under-age drinking and drug use, but the results from the
Ohio evaluation do show that educational efforts like D.A.R.E. reinforce peer resistance
skills and communication within the family about the consequences of substance use, and as
well, can show positive movement toward lower drug involvement. D.A.R.E. is an excellent
example of community policing at work.
