7A- Testing The Hypothesis

Increase in Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) Programs 

Opportunity:
Millions of Americans use drugs everyday. Over the past 30 days, it is estimated that 28 million Americans over the age of 12 have used an illegal drug. That constitutes almost 11 percent of the entire population sampled.

The Who: American youth who are at risk of using drugs
The What: They are victim to drug use and possible addiction
The Why: The usage of drugs on a consistent basis, how to prevent this from happening

Testing the who: The need is not just for the American youth. Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) programs could be useful to people of all ages and should be implemented in nations around the world. The who is anyone whose life is impacted due to a drug addiction, whether it be their own, a friend's, or a family member.

Testing the what: Some drugs that are used are not used recreationally, but rather medically. Two drugs that come to mind are marijuana and oxycodone. In this situations, people are not abusing drugs. However, individuals should not be dependent on drugs. 

Testing the why: Why would individuals take illegal drugs, knowing the legal ramifications and the effect it will have on their body. This is is most likely due to addiction. This opportunity to improve drug resistance programs would be most beneficial to the at risk youth and individuals currently abusing drugs recreationally.

Interview #1:
My first interview was with an upperclassmen business male student at UF who has a job lined up. The student was very earnest and admitted to having priorly used illegal drugs in the past. The student agreed that DARE programs should be increased, and stated that the terrible effects of drugs are not considered by many who take them. He was happy to be drug free for a long period of time and feels more productive than ever. He does not believe his prior drug use affected him long term, but would not consider doing illegal drugs again.

Interview #2:

My second interview was with a freshmen female exploratory major. My interviewee is very health conscious, so she had never experimented with drugs. She credited her DARE programs in middle school and high school for her awareness to the dangers of drugs and sustained sobriety. She was very passionate about how bad drugs are for you- and even restrains from drinking alcohol due to it's terrible effects on the body. She believes that an increase in DARE programs would likely decrease drug usage, but also says that people have to be self accountable for their own actions.

Interview #3:
My third interview was with a sophomore male pre med major. This was my favorite interview because the student I interviewed still recreationally uses drugs on a daily basis. The interviewee was aware of the drugs he was putting into his body and their effect- but used them anyone. He had DARE programs in the past. Surprisingly, he believes that DARE funding should be increased because he "now knows which drugs not to experiment with". His stance surprised me. 

Interview#4: 
My fourth interview was with a sophomore female business student. She currently does not use drugs but had experimented her senior year in high school. She had a DARE program set up in her middle school but feels that it was not beneficial to her and her peers. She instead felt that DARE programs should be only implemented and high crime and poverty areas. Her answer was also surprising to me because she actually said DARE made her friends more curious about drugs.

Interview #5:
My last interview was with a junior male engineering major. He does not use illegal drugs and never has. He was very adamant that his DARE program was helpful to him, but also credits his sobriety to self discipline. He did not want to say if America should increase it's prevalence of DARE programs based off of his lack of knowledge about the current DARE statistics.

Findings:
- Based off of my interviews, I believe that the majority of Americans think that more DARE programs would correlate to less drug usage
- I believe, due to my findings, that expanding the DARE business would be an opportunity
- I would be wary to do this due to my limited number of interviews and 2 of my interviewees referencing self discipline triumphs DARE in ability to resist drugs