Drug Education Failure

Riddled with failure, drug education has been short lived and ineffective throughout history. Scare tactics and exaggeration has played a key role in shaping drug reform education, ultimately setting up the failure of these programs. The most recent Drug Abuse Resistance Education(D.A.R.E) program has fallen down the same path as previous programs with its results showing little to no impact. The program utilizes reformed scare tactics and exaggeration to get their anti-drug message across. Cutting off the supplies is now an increasing unpopular idea in the war on drugs Many believe “the argument that education, rather than tough drug laws and border control, will be the most effective means of turning teens drug use on its head” (Armstrong).

Joseph Califano the secretary of education, welfare, and health under Carter said “Parents raise hell and refuse to send their kids to classrooms infested with asbestos, yet every day they ship their children off to schools riddled with illegal drugs” (Savino). This quote goes hand in hand with the reported drug use through teen age groups staying the same. A level of responsibility needs to be taken and the D.A.R.E program is not that. “The results were disappointing for DARE: While the program was shown to have the largest impact in teaching kids about drugs, it had the smallest impact in teaching kids to avoid drug use” (Sebelius). Originally operating with roughly $10 million budget the program was reduced to about $3.7 million following government reports discrediting the effectiveness of the program. Yet on the grand scheme of things “$170 million earmarked for the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign and $694 million for the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Community Program” (Armstrong). These have both been consistently growing as drug abuse levels have not dropped and is becoming a major problem for young adults and teenagers with the severity being increased. This fact alone shows the ultimate failure of the program at