Alex Cohen is the Director of Learning and Evaluation for the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. As opioids and tobacco continue to claim Hoosier lives, many are looking toward K-12 school-based prevention programs to stem the tide. One of the most well-known prevention programs is Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or D.A.R.E. At its height, D.A.R.E. was implemented across the world, with more than $750 million spent on the program annually. But study after study has found little evidence for the impacts of D.A.R.E. on drug use. This is a common problem: Keeping kids off drugs and alcohol is not easy. As a result, not every intervention works. The good news is […]

Alex Cohen is the Director of Learning and Evaluation for the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. In July 2019, the CDC released preliminary estimates that showed, for the first time since 1990, a decline in fatal drug poisonings (overdose deaths) in the United States—by approximately 5 percent from 2017 to 2018. This decline is borne out in Indiana and Marion County as well. In Indiana, data from the CDC and provisional data from the Indiana State Department of Health show a decline of more than 10%. Marion County, which has the highest fatal drug poisoning count in the state, saw a similar decline, according to data from the IU Public Policy […]