38. re-think the DARE program
Reform, phase out or eliminate the DARE program – studies have shown it has little or no positive effect and can in fact have the opposite impact as intended. DARE undermines it’s own message by equating all drugs as equally bad, which does not match the reality experienced when DARE graduates become teenagers.
- “DARE Doesn’t Work, Study Finds”, NBC News
- “Just Say No Again: The Old Failures of New and Improved Anti-drug Education”, Reason.com
- “If DARE Doesn’t Work, Why Pay?”, The Patriot-News and LawOfficer.com
- “The Problem With DARE Is That It Doesn’t Work”, The Vancouver Sun
- “DARE-free Communities”
100 Ideas for New Paltz 
Dare has been dropped! So we can drop this one. Yeah! We at the NP Youth Program now use a program called Project Alert in the middle school. It seems to be slightly more effective, if one is to believe the RAND research (http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB4518-1/index1.html). It is also a hell of a lot cheaper as far as I know.