Talk:Drug Abuse Resistance Education

What they teach?

Is there any more specific information on the actual content they teach regarding the hazards of drugs? From what I understand, that was the main criticism from many in the healthcare community, that they were intentionally giving inaccurate information or exaggerating the health risk, and when students discovered this later, they would be less trusting of official health warnings over drugs. When DARE came to my school they told us smoking marijuana would cause men to grow breasts, go bald, and it cause women to grow facial hair, among other completely baseless claims. Can someone get some information regarding the accuracy of their claims as to the health risks? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.238.87.192 (talk) 12:50, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Information of DARE inaccurate?

My recent independent research shows that many of the statements and claims about drugs made by the DARE program have been proven to be myths or exaggerations. Unfortunately most of this research is based on individual DARE classes rather than an overview of ALL classes. If would be very nice if anyone could elaborate of this fact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.121.84.218 (talk) 05:17, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

More recent criticism research?

Do we have an evaluation of the effectiveness of the new curriculum? The New York times article referenced states that DARE is going to develop a new curriculum, targeting older children. What are the results of that change? What about the studies of the new system? Dare.org seems to show that the program is in full swing, and they claim that studies have proven its effectiveness. What do critics say?

Move criticism of Original Program into Main Text

Now that DARE has accepted the ineffectiveness of its original program, it seems that we can move that information into the main text, together with a comment that DARE has developed a new program. Seems like since DARE accepted it (finally) it's now Neutral.

Fond memories

Ah, back in the days. . . I remember going through D.A.R.E. several times during elementary school. We kids thought it was the funniest name for a class: all you have to do is expand the acronym as "Drug Abuse [and] Resistance [to] Education"! Many years later, my college buddies and I shared memories of our D.A.R.E. experiences. One young woman, studying to be a mathematician, said that the program had been very counterproductive for her. She had not thought at all about drugs before experiencing D.A.R.E., but she left rubbing her chin and thinking, "LSD, you say?" Anville 09:17, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

D.A.R.E. Turned Me On

There were only three things I (and, I think, everyone in my class) took away from the D.A.R.E. Program:

1. D.A.R.E. told us not to do it. In high school, they told us to stop doing it...

2. Second of all, the officers gave us a tour of their entire (confiscated) stash, the street names for all the shit, and where they (and we) could get all of 'em...

3. They tried to brainwash us with all the cancerous lungs and death statistics (which were collectively depressing enough to drive a man to drink; which it did...); and we fooled around with the drunkgoggles was fun...

Oops, I lied; there was one more thing:

4. They also gave us each an entire order supply's worth of merchandise--D.A.R.E. tshirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, full stationary sets, stickers, and gift certificates...

Basically, the program's totally defunct and a joke beyond belief. Like I said at the beginning, they're turning more kids on to the stuff than off... —Preceding unsigned comment added by WAS (talk • contribs)

• Yeah. DARE is very stupid. I'm in school now and all I am actually learning about drugs is how they are made, where we can find them and how to use them. Drug abuse resistance education. Sheesh.Irish rover 01:49, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Neutrality

I highly question the neutrality of this section. For example: "Many have speculated that police strongly support the program not because it is effective, but rather that police enjoy the interruption of the monotony of other police work." This is evidently a case of original research (see WP:NOR). Where have parents said that there are skits in which kids pretend to be high? Try to find citations for these things. And also, let's make this talk page about improving the article, and not relating about how DARE got you into buying acid. Bibliomaniac15 18:03, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll work on trying to deal with this problem.In the meantime, why don't you add some favorable material to the page.ThanxJames Halliday 19:05, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

This needs NPOV and a criticism section. 72.224.4.157 03:03, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree that there are far too many weasel words and such in the article, so I added an NPOV tag to the article. I wrote a DARE research paper back in my freshman year, and I'll see if I can dig it up. --Nick2253 23:37, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I am with you on the NPOV. I tried to shore up some of it, but it seems that the prevailing POV is that DARE is bad. There certainly is plenty of criticism. I added the section about funding to tell why it is under attack. I had changed lots of "children" to "students" and made other revisions as the article at that time seemed to describe A Clockwork Orange and 1984. My guess is that there are a large number of Wikipedia editors that do not like the authoritarianism aspect of the program and need a kinder, gentler approach. Also, as students get older there is a certain amount of cynicism and a feeling of indestructibility. So perhaps the program is no longer effective for teens, they have already made their choices. Certainly there are a large number of parents in our school district who are blissfully unaware that their kids are bogarting their stash or committing crimes to buy meth. Group29 15:07, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

The following sentence in the criticism section is problematic for two reasons: "Even though minutes after learning of these poisons, they are told something bad about the drug." For one thing, it is grammatically incorrect as a stand-alone sentence. For another, the writer presupposes that all drugs are posisons. That seems POV--there are many people who would disagree with the argument that alcohol and marijuana are poisons. The sentence could be modified to something like: "Some critics argue that students are more aware of drugs than they were when they entered the DARE program, although officers involved endeavor to stress the dangers of the drugs to students." Any thoughts?

Date is Wrong

The article says that the DARE Program was founded by LAPD Chief Gates in 1994. Gates was no longer Chief in 1994. The DARE website mentions 1984 as the founding of DARE in Los Angeles.

Kingpervis 05:52, 15 December 2006 (UTC)kingpervis

I'd also like to add that the citation for the "In 2003, the department of education concluded that dare was ineffective..." part is from 2001, two years before the article could have known what was going to happen... Kami5909 06:51, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Opinions

It actually works. I went through it in 5th grade, and I've stayed well awayfrom the HARMFUL drugs. Even if you've never thought about drugs before, it WARNS you about the negative effects. I actually am now warned about using harmful substances. Besides, it warns 5th graders about things that may kill them. Dragonlady :)

Speak for yourself. I went through DARE in 5th grade and I love illegal drugs. SockMonkeh 16:49, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

You cannot generalize that because it 'worked' for you that it HAS worked in general. Remember what factors play a role in substance abuse? trauma, socio-economic factors, gender, education, etc. When I went thru DARE i left hating all drugs, now that I have a college degree I can positively say that I love them! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.87.14.123 (talk) 07:17, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Fifth Grade?

The beginning of this article states that DARE is for students only in fifth grade, there are references to high school curriculums later on —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.174.118.196 (talk) 16:09, 11 May 2007 (UTC).

In high school you voulenteer to teach 5th graders if you graduated DARE back in 6th grade and stayed drug-frree.

"Positive effects" (?)

Does anyone know how long there's been an empty "Positive effects" section? Curious.... Maxisdetermined 02:32, 2 August 2007 (UT)

Well, actually, i don't think there are any positive effects.

There are positives, police get paid to do nothing but propagate false beliefs and scare children. I wish someone would pay me to do either of those.

T-shirt, other unsourced material

Is the claim that the shirt's a "pop culture icon" something requiring a citation? Is that even a verifiable statement in the first place? Much of this article needs sources, such as the new "Positive effects" material. Maxisdetermined 04:41, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

This is a pop culture reference, usually not needing a source (hence the name 'pop-culture'). It's no secret people wear dare shirts to mock the program. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.87.14.123 (talk) 07:19, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Sources

Many of the sources are opinion essays, which do not cite their original sources. I added more detail to a number of the refs, adding authors and so forth. The article really needs to source the original research data that is the basis for the criticism, as all the opinion essays lead back to that. Also, the criticism seems to be somewhat dated, how has D.A.R.E. America changed its program? The article really only makes presumptions as to why the program is as popular as it is. Note that there are huge numbers of city and school district D.A.R.E. program links. There are also large numbers of "X City adopts D.A.R.E." or "X City drops D.A.R.E." articles. Also, there needs to be more information and research data about other programs of proven effectiveness. The article seems NPOV down to the criticism and postive effects section. Group29 02:19, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

This is a copy of a message I left on User talk:David Justin: I never really intended spend that much time with the article. It took way more time than I would have liked. I would say that there is still more reference work to be done. I think links to the scientific data are needed. The programs of proven effectiveness could use references on which programs are actually more effective and why. The article also needs some ref data on why the program is widely used. User:Sefringle placed the ref tag there on May 21, 2007. I will leave a message on the User talk:Sefringle page asking whether or not the ref tag can go. I would say that I have no vested interest in the article otherwise. I merely landed there to document the D.A.R.E. police cars. At the time I placed the copy there, the article had serious NNN N-NPOV problems. There is also occasional vandalism, which I feel like I am the only one correcting.Group29 23:05, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

This is a copy of a message I left on User talk:David Justin: There is evidence to suggest that you are connected with Professor David Justin Hanson, PhD. The writings attributed to Dr. Hanson on the Potsdam.edu site have substantial numbers of references, which would seem to be more connected and a better representation to the position that D.A.R.E. is ineffective. The particular reference to the statement "there is no scientific evidence..." looked like it was picked from a google search on "dare+effective". I give your credit that you put more relevant text in after I made my change that the reference did not support the statement. Based on other Wikipedia contributions, the conclusions I could draw are

a.) You are not actually Dr. Hanson, but agree with his views.

b.) You are not actually Dr. Hanson, but one of his assistants

c.) You are Dr. Hanson, but possibly you have a misunderstanding of/contempt for Wikipedia and do not feed the need to put your already researched references.

d.) You are trolling on this article

No matter what position you represent, my opinion is that Dr. Hanson's work can stand on its own merits and can be referenced effectively in this article. According to his research, there is scientific evidence that D.A.R.E. is ineffective. That should be added and cited as a valuable contribution in the article. Thanks Group29 15:39, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Police officers in the classroom

Still finding that more of the sources in the criticism section are opinion essays with no corroborating references. After reviewing the references, I deleted the section for Police officers in the classroom. It may be a valid concern, if properly referenced, to go in a controversy or concern section not criticism. Group29 16:59, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Note that if classroom volunteers are permitted by the school district, they may not discriminate against a particular person on the basis of occupation. The school district would have to prohibit the program. '"X" do not belong in the "Y"' also becomes an inflammatory statement. Group29 17:03, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

D.A.R.E. vs Rolling Stone

There are a number of criticisms, citing the libel suit dismissal between Rolling Stone and D.A.R.E.

This is the article abstract:

"Federal Judge Virginia A Phillips says she intends to dismiss lawsuit against Rolling Stone magazine over article it published in March 1998 about antidrug program DARE, for Drug Abuse Resistance Education, that contained fabrications by its author, Stephen Glass; Phillips says there is no evidence that Rolling Stone knew of Glass's fabrications before article was published and that DARE will not be able to prove Rolling Stone acted with malice or reckless disregard for the truth."

A complete copy of the article is needed to support the statement with the cited text. Also a copy of the case summary would be helpful. Many opinion articles reference this particlar article, but no specific citations are included. There are notable criticisms, but the refs do not support the statements.

Also the RTI research was criticized by National Institute of Justice, the research office for the U.S. Department of Justice, not the D.A.R.E. program according to the Reason Magazine ref. Group29 18:00, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I put a merger proposal template on the D.A.R.E. T-shirt article page on the basis of overlap and context. See Help:Merging and moving pages. The T-shirt article is only linked from this article, and is covered. Group29 18:03, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Positive effects of D.A.R.E. section

The "Positive effects of D.A.R.E." section needs expansion. Thanks.David Justin 04:39, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Verification of sources

The following example illustrates my understanding of what constitutes verification of sources for facts presented in Wikipedia:

• A fact: Daryl Gates testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that infrequent or casual drug users "ought to be taken out and shot" because "we're in a war" and even casual drug use is "treason."
• A verification: Ronald J. Ostrow, Casual Drug Users Should Be Shot, Gates Says, Los Angeles Times, Sept. 6, 1990, p. A1.
• An observation: It is not necessary to verify the validity or invalidity of Gates’ assertions by verifying any sources he may have used in coming to his beliefs. Similarly, if Gates had published an opinion piece making those same assertions, it would not be necessary to identify any sources or references upon which he may have relied. In short, we only need to verify his statements, not his basis for them

Thanks.David Justin 16:11, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Prof. Justin, clearly you have an understanding of how it works. In practice, I do not understand why you are acting to the contrary. please check out the Wikipedia:Verifiability section if you have not already. For example in this change you made on 22 September 2007, you mixed in a combination of assertion that can be verified and assertion that needs verification.[1]

"D.A.R.E. also attempted unsuccessfully to prevent airing of an episode of the TV series "Murphy Brown," in which she used marijuana for medical purposes on advice of her physician. It was argued that the episode “Sent the wrong message to our children.”" The episode in the final season of Murphy Brown is called "Waiting to inhale" which could be verified on an episode guide, series biography, or perhaps by looking back through old issues of TV Guide. However the assertion that D.A.R.E. unsuccessfully tried to prevent the airing of the episode is not backed by a reliable source. See Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Self-published sources as to why this is not a valid source. In fact, the text you sourced at hemotopia.org appears to originally be sourced at jackherer.com, which may or may not be appearing with Mr. Herer's permission. I noted a previous example of an argumentum ad populum statement in the talk page. Please see also Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view. I already have pointed out politely places where the statements are unsupported by the references, and then went back and changed the article to fit the context of the reference. I understand your point of view on this article, which is that the D.A.R.E. program is not effective. As I stated before, the sources and statements can stand on their own merits. You have self-published essay material with this point of view on your web sites. This material is linked from the article. This material brought into the article is going against the policy Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_soapbox. Group29 18:12, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi Group29- I see your point regarding the Murphy Brown material and have deleted it. Thanks.David Justin 01:03, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

References needed

References are needed for "The D.A.R.E. T-Shirt" and "D.A.R.E. police cars" sections. Thanks for any help you can provide.David Justin 18:53, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

References needed tag

A tag calling for additional references or sources for verification was posted on 21 May, at which time there was an average of one reference per 131 words in the article. Today (6 October) there is an average of one reference per 54 words, which is 2.4 times the earlier density of references. I have found only two remaining un-referenced statements in this 4,000-plus word article and have marked them with {{Fact}}. Should you find a statement needing a reference, please so mark it.

The article now (7 October) appears to be unusually well-referenced. Therefore, I am removing the tag. Thanks. David Justin 17:04, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Factual inaccuracies

Please help improve this article by identifying any factual inaccuracies - - I have been unable to find any. The only potential inaccuraies might appear to be in the "D.A.R.E. T-shirt" section and I have identified them with {{Fact}}. Thanks.David Justin 18:03, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Prof Hansen, I am sure you are satisfied with your own material. However, there is a pattern of misleading references from you, including a number that are not Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Self-published references to your own site are one example. Until the article has been reviewed and better attributable sources have been quoted, the tag should stand. Also until then, the article does not follow Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, which in your last update you have conceded. Thanks, Group29 19:15, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

D.A.R.E

Dare is an important class. Because with out DARE a lot of people would proabaly be on drugs. TWO of my family members used to do drugs now but one went to a place to help not to do drugs and now he has not been doing drugs for a yearc isnt that a mircale. The other one smoke but they wit and havent done it sense. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.235.162.8 (talk) 12:49, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Are you daft? You didn't even acknowledge that your family members were helped by DARE or by DARE's "techniques" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.208.144.197 (talk) 05:54, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Waste of Time

I "Graduated" D.A.R.E. in 1992 with 98 others. I am the ONLY one that has not done drugs. This has NOTHING to do with D.A.R.E. Waste of time, waste of money, people involved should be ashamed of themselves, as should the disgusting people who pester innocent people outside markets asking for donations to this farcical failure. I think people should focus on WHY children gravitate towards drugs, not simply try the "Drugs are bad" approach; kids are obviously going to rebel against anything they hear in school, especially when they are taught that pot won't kill. Go away DARE. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.208.144.197 (talk) 05:52, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Promote??

"Drug Abuse Resistance Education, better known as D.A.R.E. or DARE, is an international education program that seeks to promote use of illegal drugs, membership in gangs, and violent behavior." The article's opening sentence is grossly incorrect, as DARE does not promote any of these. Quite the opposite, in fact. Somebody please fix this. --72.229.8.76 (talk) 17:49, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Typos?

D.A.R.E. rulers, pennants, Daren coloring books Is this supposed to be "D.A.R.E. coloring books"? 4.242.174.151 (talk) 23:39, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

That seems logical. Changing. Codes02 (talk) 06:05, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

The original edit was probably referring to "Daren the D.A.R.E. Lion" who appeared in the coloring book(s) as a cartoon lion wearing a DARE t-shirt and no pants. See for instance this website: http://www.wupd.com/kids.htm tolchocker  talk  20:55, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Recommend Merger of the Developments section into the Efficacy section

I attempted to fix the lack of time frame in the Developments section, but it still seems to lack order when compared to the efficacy sec. Codes02 (talk) 06:04, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

This article is VERY biased in favor of DARE

There is practically no mention of how vague and misleading the information DARE gives out is. Just looking at the website you can see it's full of scare tactics(the LSD page espicially). I know that wikipedia can't be perfect this is just too biased. YVNP (talk) 03:19, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Organization

This article does a decent job of presenting material though much more research is required to give it a more comprehensive feel. In addition, the layout is somewhat confusing as there is a section about Children as Informants right between different critical studies and the DARE response to criticism. These section should be successive. IR393 TheSituation (talk) 10:35, 16 Nov 2010 (UTC)

Parody Citation

How would I go about citing something like this? This bumper sticker and this t-shirt are good examples, but I'm not sure how to (or where to look for information to) reference that kind of thing. Any help is much appreciated. SiriusBsns (talk) 02:31, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Assessment

I thought this article gave a good general overview of the DARE program, especially its history and some of the studies done on it. There have obviously been many revisions to the article that have improved it a lot. However, I thought there was a lack of information about the current curriculum of DARE. After the article I still don't have a clear picture of what techniques DARE is currently using in its programs. An expansion of some of the small sections like 'effectiveness' and 'curriculem' would, I think, be beneficial as they don't seem to be comprehensive. There are also several statements not backed up by citations. IR393Sadar (talk) 03:03, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Article assessment

I thought the article was well written, properly sourced, and maintained a neutral point of view by assessing both the program's criticisms and responses to said criticism. However, I feel that the organization/layout of the article could stand a little revision. The "Response to Criticism" heading should immediately follow the "Studies" (which largely criticizes the program) instead of the few random sections that were put between these two parts. Juxtaposing the two would make more sense, especially to make the article seem a bit more fair and balanced as it would allow both opinions of the program to be considered side-by-side. Also, the Dare in the UK section seems a little awkward. Perhaps it deserves a separate article of its own??? IR393 will (talk) 16:22, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Article Assessment

One of the biggest issues I found with this article was the subsection on Effectiveness of the D.A.R.E. program. The few sentences provided seem to suggest that the D.A.R.E program is either ineffective or having the opposite effect. I think this section should be expanded to include statistics from specific schools and districts as well as statistics for the nation as a whole. It would be hard though to differentiate between causal and correlational variable with a subject matter like this because there are many things that effect overall drug use besides prevention programs. Perhaps a statistical overview of many schools in the same district would be the most useful? IR393harrisonkatz (talk) 20:30, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Do you know where such statistics exists? Remember, we are relying on what is already available in WP:Reliable sources so perhaps the sources do not exist. Though looking at this article, I would not be surprised if we are missing something. Sadads (talk) 23:31, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

It would be necessary to compare schools or districts that initially had similar drug use rates and similar values on other independent values of interest--e.g., crime rate in surrounding area, poverty rates, other things--watch them for a number of years after some implement DARE and some do not.--Ck07 (talk) 14:53, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

The information in the article cites a source that provides contrary information

In the beginning of the article, a line reads that D.A.R.E. has proven to be highly effective, citing source #2. Source #2 actually states that "[D.A.R.E.] receives substantial support from parents, teachers, police, and government funding agencies, and its popularity persists despite numerous well-designed evaluations and meta-analyses that consistently show little or no deterrent effects on substance use."

Randomkalo (talk) 19:05, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Contradictory Information

On the effectiveness section, the opinion of Surgeon General of the United States is misquoted, saying that the source claims that DARE is place under the category of "Works". The source actually places DARE under the category of "Ineffective Primary Prevention Programs" stating that "... children who participate are as likely to use drugs as those who do not participate...". Just a comment, in case anyone might want to look into it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.130.237.204 (talk) 01:40, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

"Smoke-Free Class of 2000"

Anyone else remember this? I figured it would have its own article on here but it doesn't. Does anyone know if it was connected to DARE? --RThompson82 (talk) 04:37, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

History

"in the last academic year" It is not clear to me to which academic year this refers.Dawright12 (talk) 10:22, 21 February 2013 (UTC)