The DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program began in 1983 as a national effort to curb the entire drug culture and economy. Since then it has spread to fifty-four nation-states as a popular way to combat drug use via community based organizations which educate children of the dangers and consequences of all types of drug abuse.

Although proliferation of DARE worldwide was rapid, it has in recent years begun to disappear from sight, especially within the schools here in America. The reason? In 1998 a series of government and University studies began to emerge showing that the program did not work. Further review of the methods used in DARE show that the scare tactics, which are heavily utilized, are temporary. In political theory of power and control it is historically shown that fear tactics ultimately result in a discontented resentment and distrust of the authority which dispenses the fear, and not that thing/person/idea which the authority has encouraged the fear of. Simply put, you hate the people that make you scared, not what they say to be scared of.

n 2001, the Surgeon General of the United States, David Satcher M.D. Ph.D., placed the DARE program in the category of "Does Not Work." The U.S. General Accountability Office concluded in 2003 that the program was sometimes counterproductive in some populations, with those who graduate from DARE later having higher rates of drug use.

News spread fast and after two decades of DARE little or no apparent improvement of any quantitative measure could be discerned of by parents, public officials, or even students of the DARE program. Many felt that DARE worsened the problem and simply educated impressionable children to the types and methods of drugs and use. What equated to an "abstinence only" approach to drug use was a massive failure and DARE is now only an optional program with the number of participating districts dwindling as time progresses. Popularity too is falling, especially as people learn that DARE not only doesn't stop drug use, but has actually been shown to increase it.