As the first in a series of studies, the DARE evaluation will establish benchmarks against which findings from future studies can be compared. The evaluation will compare measurements of behavior, attitudes, beliefs, and performance pertinent to DARE programming among students who have had DARE programming between grades 5 and 12, students who have had DARE programming only in grade 5, and students with no DARE exposure. The planned methodology will incorporate an ex post facto design, and target schools will be selected that have administered the DARE program for several years. The evaluation design provides for longitudinal analysis and within cell comparisons and contains safeguards against bias errors. In addition, the evaluation design calls for interviewing teachers and other school personnel, obtaining reasonably large samples, and collecting data using questionnaires. The following hypothesis will be tested: students who have received DARE programming in grades 5 through 10 are less likely to have experimented with drugs, alcohol, or tobacco by grade 12 than those who have not received DARE programming. 9 footnotes and 2 figures