Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday touted the decades-old Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, or DARE, even though many have panned the program as one that failed to achieve any meaningful results.

"DARE is, I think, the best remembered anti-drug program today. In recent years, people have not paid much attention to that message, but they are ready to hear it again," Sessions said to a DARE conference in Texas. "We know it worked before and we can make it work again."

"Thank you for the important work that you do to help prevent the spread of drug addiction in this country," he said. "Your DARE team is ready to meet this next challenge. Just like you did in the 1980s and 90s."

The program is an education program that was founded in 1983 as means to fight drug use and trafficking among students, and especially in gangs.

But DARE, which is funded with taxpayer money, has been panned as ineffective. In 2003, the GAO reported that the program was ineffective and all studies of it found "no significant differences in illicit drug use" as a result of the program.

Five of the six studies on students attitudes toward drugs also found "no significant differences" between groups influenced by the program, and other groups.

Former Rep. Trey Radel, R-Fla., who was forced to resign his seat in Congress after being arrested for cocaine possession, rejected Sessions' argument in a tweet.

"We had DARE at my school," he wrote. "Nuff said."

We had DARE at my school. Nuff said. https://t.co/VQmPPRevQ7 — Trey Radel (@treyradel) July 11, 2017

"GAO and other studies found that DARE did not work. Sessions at DARE conference today said it worked. So I guess it worked," tweeted Kevin Ring on Tuesday. Ring is the president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, and the group has been outspoken against many of Sessions' policy proposals and changes.

Sessions' speech came amid a growing opioid crisis nationwide. In 2015, more than 52,000 U.S. residents died from a drug overdose, a number expected to increase in to-come 2016 data.