I grew up at the tail end of DARE, but I don’t really remember the program. Just the “DARE to be drug free.” My husband still has an old DARE t-shirt he wears as a gym shirt.

Typically, I’m not a non-fiction reader, but the DARE program has always been so interesting to me. As previously stated, I don’t remember the program or much if any of its content. I don’t remember DARE officers in schools… but to this day I remember being terrified of drugs, so much so that perhaps I’m one of the program’s success stories as far as being drug free.

To read about the implementation, administration, abuse and ultimate failure of the program was just so interesting to me. Parts of the book felt very repetitive but I think serve a purpose to drive a point home. DARE was never supported by research. Drugs always win.
If you want a high level look inside the DARE program, how and why it was set up and it’s alterative motives you will find this book pretty interesting.

I wanted to read this book purely based off the cover, title and my lack of knowledge about the DARE Program.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I didn’t have any personal experience with DARE beyond exposure to people (who likely also had never participated in the program) ironically smoking weed in DARE t-shirts, so I was interested to learn more about this extremely culturally popular program and organization. I think this book provided a solid overview of how DARE started and how it grew. This section of the book did feel somewhat repetitive at times.

The strength of this book lies in its discussion of the critiques of DARE, both in a lack of proven effectiveness and in its unalloyed promotion of policing. Additionally, the discussion of the bipartisan political support behind DARE, from Reagan to Clinton as well as congressional monetary support was quite interesting.

I have to start by saying that I was two years too old to participate in DARE in school.
I remember the DARE officer coming to the school.

I was always wondering what happened to the DARE program, how it got started and how it spread so rapidly.

This book will answer most of your questions.
I really enjoyed how it was promoted from LAPD Chief Daryl Gates and basically admitted defeat in the War Against drugs by saying lets get them young before they have a chance to do drugs.

The most fascinating part to me, was the cultural stuff. The preaching of you have a choice in drug use, to really chasing the police into the schools. The mainstream values of you must respect the police, obedience is needed for future workers, etc.

The research never supported the main claim of DARE, that it would stop drug abuse in kids. In some research it showed that there was an increase in drug abuse from kids who went through this program.

This is an indepth look at DARE, how it spread and its ultimate downfall.

Very informative and rich in examples. The only thing, I wish there had been more interviews with the kids and how they felt after taking the class. Especially the inner city kids.