David Lunn Jr. was a teenager when he first went to a DARE program assembly for his school. David has heard about the different types of medications and why it's so important to just say no. Unfortunately, the program lured him into heroin. Throughout the assembly, heroin was on his mind because the program made drugs seem fun. He started using heroin until his drug craving led him to opiates. David had a promising life as a professional basketball player until he became addicted to opiates. He would soon end up dying all alone, with his body leaning against the basement door of a dilapidated apartment building. This story mentions just one of the many people who had a promising life ahead of them, but their lives were cut short by an opioid overdose. A change needs to be made to protect the lives of others. Reducing the emphasis on social resistance to drug use and refocusing drug education on science will make these programs more effective and reduce drug abuse among adolescents. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The key aspect discussed is that drug programs don't work. Programs like DARE, the Just Say No campaign and others have had no luck convincing children to stop taking opioids. Children are more influenced to take medications that they are taught to avoid. According to Bernard Bard, a professor, "There is no evidence that any of the school programs observed curbed illegal drug use...the programs actually encouraged drug use." The passage that contained this phrase was written forty-six years ago and is still true today, which is a big deal. Bernard Bard also discovered that the California State Department of Education created a report on drug programs in several secondary schools. The evidence collected showed an extraordinarily high level of drug use after the program in half of the schools. This evidence reveals how current drug programs are not working for many schools and are making the drug situation worse. Not only may teens be encouraged to use drugs, but teens could potentially move on to worse drugs if society doesn't adjust the drug education children receive. David Heitz, a writer for rehab centers, has documented a new wave of drug-addicted teenagers who mix drugs with marijuana and alcohol, and some have even ended up injecting heroin. Teens have lost the battle against opioid addiction, and the number of teens using opioids is on the rise. A group of pediatric professors also found further evidence that more and more children are using opioids and continuing to use them into adulthood. Richard Miech, one of the pediatric professors involved in the study, states that "legitimate opioid use before high school graduation is independently associated with a 33% increased risk of future opioid abuse after high school." This statistic shows that the DARE program did nothing to help students and did not guide them to make better decisions. With minimal positive outcomes after teens attend drug programs reveal that these types of programs don't work. As a society, the goal is to protect each other, but it has not been achieved. Teens continue to become addicted to harmful drugs and opioid overdoses. Something needs to be done to protect the youth of the society. The bright side is that asolution to the opioid problem is to add a more scientific focus to anti-drug programs. People think that focusing only on morals can cause changes, but this is not true. The moral path has failed and now it's time to try adding a different technique to the program. Applying science to these curricula, meaning using research and studies to create a better curriculum, which is an answer to this problem. A study conducted by pediatric doctors concluded that “it seems that emotion regulation creates a dual ability to avoid substance abuse and helps control the temptation to relapse, which is a kind of tendency-avoidance conflict.” With this information, doctors began to investigate this hypothesis further. In the early 2000s, pediatric doctors and prevention doctors created keepin' it REAL, which was a new course. However, REAL differs from DARE by replacing drug lessons with interactive lessons. The interactive lessons feature stories from drug addicts and family members of people who have overdosed as a way to help teens make smart decisions. The program had reduced the number of adolescents abusing substances. In any case, it is REAL that over time he created an anti-drug mentality among students in his early experiments. These doctors even discovered that “behavioral scientists began suggesting a different approach as early as 1998, based on the search for effective behavior change techniques.” The proposed solution is not only effective, but is also scientifically proven. The Council on School Health and the Committee on Substance Abuse reported that the number of middle and high school students using illicit drugs has steadily declined. These statistics show that the keepin' it REAL program has shown improvements with the number of students taking these illicit drugs. The moral path has done nothing for students, but there is still hope in this approach. While some may argue that eliminating drug programs in schools can be just as helpful, it is not the best solution. Kids will continue to be influenced to take opioids in one way or another, whether by peer pressure or school. Without teaching teens about the dangers of opioids, they may be even more inclined to take them. Doctors advocate the use of some curricula designed for use in schools that have been proven effective. The programs provide information to students in ways that stimulate the child's interests, make the program interactive, and are developmentally appropriate for each level. Finding a drug program that teaches students a different perspective is a better solution than eliminating the program entirely. The pediatricians emphasized that “studies have convincingly demonstrated that the effects of school-based programs can be substantially amplified when community components are added.” The more effort put into these anti-drug programs, the more likely they are to work. An example of this is how the DARE program continued to work on how to better connect with students and ended up combining efforts with a new program created by researchers. The new program features a website aimed at helping teens based on previous work, which demonstrates how teaching communication and life skills can have a positive influence even if teens have been influenced by negative peers and/or other influences negative. The newest anti-drug program has shown positive effects on adolescents and proves that anti-drug programs are.