Drug Strategies Reaction Paper
by Ralph B. Lochridge
D.A.R.E. America
Posted: May 1997
Drug Strategies: The mission of Drug Strategies (a non-governmental agency) is
to promote more effective approaches to the nation's drug problem and to support private
and public initiatives that reduce the demand for drugs through prevention, education,
treatment and law enforcement.
Drug Strategies reviewed a wide range of School Drug Prevention Programs
to provide information on how to spend scarce prevention dollars. The final report
concerning the evaluation of these programs is called "Making the Grade: A
Guide to School Drug Prevention Programs". Although many of the curricula
described in Making the Grade have some type of evaluation, only ten have
evaluations that meet their criteria: namely, extensive studies, published in
peer-reviewed journals, that use pretest, post-test control group designs measuring
reductions in tobacco, drug and/or alcohol use.
Drug Strategies graded D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) Program
highly in the following areas that are considered by research studies key elements to
successful prevention teaching:
Helps students recognize internal pressures, like anxiety and stress, and external
pressures, like peer attitudes and advertising, that influence them to use alcohol,
tobacco and drugs.
Develops personal, social and refusal skills to resist these pressures.
Teaches that using drugs, alcohol, and tobacco are not the norm among teenagers, even if
students think that "everyone is doing it."
Provides developmentally appropriate material and activities, including information
about the short-term effects and long-term consequences of alcohol, tobacco, and drugs
Uses interactive teaching techniques, such as role plays, discussion brainstorming and
cooperative learning
Covers necessary prevention elements in at least ten sessions a year (with a minimum of
three to five booster sessions in two succeeding year)
Actively involves the family and the community
Includes teacher training and support
Contains material that is easy for teachers to implement and culturally relevant for
students
In addition, Drug Strategies indicated that D.A.R.E. had an appealing
curriculum covering smoking, drinking and drugs, taught by uniformed police officers.
D.A.R.E. is a broad-based nationally offered program that is highly interactive and
includes booster reinforcements in a K through 12th grade curriculum. Project delivery
cost was the lowest of all drug prevention programs studied. As indicated by Drug
Strategies, the core lessons were revised in 1994 and cover important prevention elements,
including skill development. The curriculum has been translated into Spanish, and videos
are available in English and Spanish. The workbook is available in Braille. There are many
extras offered, including a stuffed lion named Daren. Safety lessons are offered in the
early grades. There is an infusion guide with supplemental activities for teachers and
community after-school activities.
According to Drug Strategies, many of the other prevention programs lack
the following:
Failure to provide booster sessions to reinforce important prevention skills
Very costly to implement
Teaching skills are weak and inadequate
Teacher instructions are sketchy and not detailed enough for adequate implementation
Time-lines for lessons and activities are unclear
Some programs cover drug abuse material as just part of the overall curriculum
A number of programs are simply brief to be effective. Their low number of lessons may
be inadequate to teach necessary skills. 
