The original school-based D.A.R.E. curriculum had essentially no effect on drug use.
What the evidence shows
Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) sent police officers into classrooms to teach refusal skills; by the 1990s it reached the majority of US school districts and was hugely popular with parents and politicians.
A meta-analysis by West & O'Neal (2004) pooling controlled evaluations of the core curriculum found its effect on drug use was near zero — statistically insignificant and far too small to matter. Independent reviews reached the same verdict, and the programme was eventually redesigned. The lesson mirrors Scared Straight: a well-funded, well-liked, common-sense programme can simply not work. (Later 'keepin' it REAL' D.A.R.E. curricula differ and are evaluated separately.) The original claim is refuted.
Sources
West, S. L., & O'Neal, K. K. (2004). Project D.A.R.E. outcome effectiveness revisited.
American Journal of Public Health, 94(6), 1027–1029
The core D.A.R.E. programme had a negligible, non-significant effect on drug use across controlled studies.
DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.94.6.1027 →