THE DRUG Abuse Resistance Education is a program that teaches children (K-12) to resist drugs and live productive violence free lives. It is an officer-led class that was available in the US and other countries. This program was shut down due to some believing it was introducing kids to drugs more than it was preventing drug use.

However, Granger officers and students have their own thoughts about the D.A.R.E program.

“The program showed more about what drugs were rather than the effects. I don’t think this program was helpful at all,” Allie De La Cruz (11) said. She thinks the program didn’t work the way it was intended. “Although this program was meant to prevent drug use, I feel it did the opposite.”

D.A.R.E. curriculum introduced students to previously unknown drigs, which caused curiosity, not prevention. They intended to teach effective peer resistance and refusal skills so that adolescents could say no to dangerous substances and friends who encouraged them to use them.

However, not all students felt the same about the D.A.R.E program.

“I first found out about D.A.R.E in elementary school. Prior, I did not know of any harmful substances, but after their talk, I knew for a fact that I wanted to stay away from drugs,” Lily Baw (12) said. The D.A.R.E program’s results varied from student to student.

Officers at Granger high school have their own thoughts about D.A.R.E. “This program did teach peers to say no to any drugs. Depending on who they’re around, drugs can affect them,” Officer Moses said. “I never taught this program, but I was an assistant. The way they introduced drugs to kids was a good thing, and they had reward systems for completing this program,” he said.

Officers have a different outlook on the program than the students who actually participated in a  D.A.R.E course. The officers teaching this program tended to concentrate on the negative consequences drug use, but many students found that instructors failed to explain the fundamentals of drug abuse, addiction, and prevention. There were positive intentions when introducing the program to all ages. But it failed in some aspects, which caused the opposite of what was intended.

The negative reports shouldn’t overshadow the success D.A.R.E. had in helping children and teens stay away from substance abuse.