Drug Abuse Resistance Education

Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) is a substance abuse prevention education program that seeks to prevent use of controlled drugs, membership in gangs, and violent behavior. It was founded in Los Angeles in 1983 as a joint initiative of then-LAPD chief Daryl Gates and the Los Angeles Unified School District as a demand-side drug control strategy of the American War on Drugs.

Students who enter the program sign a pledge not to use drugs or join gangs and are informed by local police officers about the government's beliefs about the dangers of recreational drug use in an interactive in-school curriculum which lasts ten weeks.

D.A.R.E. America's operating revenue has declined from $10 million in 2002 to $3.7 million in 2010 following the publication of government reports that uniformly discredited the effectiveness of the program. D.A.R.E implemented a new curriculum based on work by Penn State and Arizona State researchers.

Its American headquarters is in Inglewood, California. DARE expanded to Great Britain in 1995.

Instructors of the D.A.R.E. curriculum are local police officers who must undergo 80 hours of special training in areas such as child development, classroom management, teaching techniques, and communication skills. For high school instructors, 40 hours of additional training are prescribed. Police officers are invited by the local school districts to speak and work with students. Police officers are permitted to work in the classroom by the school district and do not need to be licensed teachers. There are programs for different age levels. Working with the classroom teachers, the officers lead students over a number of sessions on workbooks and interactive discussions.

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