April 11 is National D.A.R.E Day. D.A.R.E or the Drug Abuse Resistance Education Program was founded in 1983 by the Los Angeles police department. The goal of the program was to help school age children develop strength of character which would enable them to resist getting involved with drugs and gangs and violence.

According to the D.A.R.E website, the program continues to be very successful. A D.A.R.E trained officer or teacher can be found in about 75% of the schools in the United States. The website claims that the program is involving youth in 43 countries around the world. The D.A.R.E program is designed to function as a partnership between local schools and local police departments. A school's D.A.R.E officer has undergone special training which will allow him or her to present an ongoing curriculum from kindergarten to grade 12. The D.A.R.E officer is someone selected to present the positive side of policing to young children and teens. That officer becomes the "face" of the police department to many children.

There are two websites that will provide information to anyone interested in doing further research about D.A.R.E. One of these is the national website for the D.A.R.E program. This site includes information on the program's mission, the executive officers, activities throughout the country, and awards and scholarships available to student participates in the program. Selecting Hometown D.A.R.E USA on the left-hand toolbar, will provide access to listings for D.A.R.E programs in New Hampshire.

The second website is for the New Hampshire D.A.R.E program. The New Hampshire website provides information specifically about the state-wide program including scholarships available to students in the program, affiliations with the Manchester semi-professional sports teams, and news and events involving D.A.R.E in New Hampshire. At this point in time, Nashua does not appear to be one of the New Hampshire towns participating in the D.A.R.E program, although several local communities do participate.

D.A.R.E was a very popular, successful program for dealing with youth and drug abuse in the 1980's and 1990's. There has been some suggestion that the program has lost the ability to connect with young people which it once had and that it may have outlived its usefulness. In answer to this, the D.A.R.E program has developed a new curriculum which it is putting into place. These new plans for D.A.R.E can be reviewed on the website. Hopefully this program will be able to successfully reinvent itself.