DirectDraw

Why would you want to use it in the first place?!? It's dead, let in rest in peace. [grin]

Of course. Since DirectX is based on COM it stays backwards compatible so you can still use it even with the latest versions of directx but the DX SDK has stopped providing documentation on it years ago so you'll have to find a book or an old SDK for that.
Besides, as has been pointed out unless you are working with an old os like nt4 or crappy video card that doesn't support direct3D or old directx code there is no good reason I can think of to use it anymore.

DirectDraw/Older versions of DirectX
There are relatively few folk using these unsupported technologies. One place you may find kindred spirits is on the Indie Gamer Forums. For reasons of compatibility some smaller indie games are built using older technologies. Again the GameDev.net DirectX forums may also be of help.

If you are planning on using directdraw, you might as well simply program in actionscript (flash)... directdraw is outdated and it has been replaced by direct3d (Really, direct3d can do everything directdraw does)... with direct3d you can still use 2d over 3d (create "flat" vertex buffers)
(An example is the game maplestory, it appears 2d but it uses direct3d and hardware acceleration)

I reccomend you just go straight to direct3d

Yeah, I recommend not even bothering with something so deprecated. The Direct3DX libary provides an interface (ID3DXSprite) that you can use to draw 2D graphics with relative ease. And like the person above me said, if you have have to use vertex buffers, just keep them "flat", meaning keep the vertex coordinates directly and strictly on the XY-plane.

Direct answer: Yes. You can use the DX7 version of DirectDraw with DirectX 8 (Or 9, or 10).

Real answer: Yes, but you don't want to. If you're following a book or online tutorial, it's seriously outdated and should go for a Direct3D related tutorial / book. On Vista, DirectDraw is emulated through D3D, which just means that it's slower than using D3D directly. Using D3D also gives you fun things like rotation and translucency for free; things that either don't exist with DirectDraw or would take a lot of CPU power to do.

Short answer: Yes, but you don't want to. Use D3D instead.