The only thing I can remember is the dare officer teaching us how to use a bong and how to cook heroin in a spoon. I'm not sure how that's supposed to stop us from using drugs though.
DARE: The Anti-Drug Program That Never Actually Worked
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Re: DARE: The Anti-Drug Program That Never Actually Worked
#12As opposed to all the ones that worked?
Re: DARE: The Anti-Drug Program That Never Actually Worked
#13The only thing I can remember is the dare officer teaching us how to use a bong and how to cook heroin in a spoon. I'm not sure how that's supposed to stop us from using drugs though.
Did you see the video of the DEA agent who shot himself in the foot during a K-12 presentation?
Re: DARE: The Anti-Drug Program That Never Actually Worked
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was a teenage DARE ambassador, taught younger kids how uncool drugs were. But that wasn't nearly as effective as the time I drew a caricature of the class's newest drug user and a friend made 50 copies of it. Major fireworks, major drama, and all adults who wanted to know were now in the know. I may have almost destroyed that poor thing's life, but in doing so I believe I found a faster-acting solution than DARE, a…
It seems to me that the best way is simply to severely punish any kid caught taking drugs. And do hair tests to make sure they're caught.
You do realize that every President of the US in the last 2 decades has smoked pot and in some cases used harder drugs, right? Oppressive police state tactics are rarely a good idea, whether dealing with kids or otherwise.
Re: DARE: The Anti-Drug Program That Never Actually Worked
#15As a counterpoint, I found DARE to be a useful and worldly course.
I probably wasn't the target audience, as an introverted sciency-type, but the class gave me a survey of the various drugs on the market and an introduction to a vocabulary with which I'd had no contact. When interactions with drugs touched closer friends in subsequent years, I feel that I was better prepared than I would've been without DARE.
Anecdotally, DARE led to my confounding our family doctor when I categorically refused to take any cough medicine, even prescribed, that contained codeine.
So, Mr. DARE officer, your course worked for me.
Re: DARE: The Anti-Drug Program That Never Actually Worked
#16D.A.R.E. was funded by Big Pharma trade groups, branches of law enforcement, and even things like asset forfeiture [1]. It was never about public health, but simply propaganda to justify the abuses carried out in the name of the War on Drugs and to prop up the prison and pharma industries.
Substance abuse education can't be entrusted to the government given how easy it is for public programs to be corrupted by interests who are opposed to public health and safety.
Re: DARE: The Anti-Drug Program That Never Actually Worked
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was a teenage DARE ambassador, taught younger kids how uncool drugs were. But that wasn't nearly as effective as the time I drew a caricature of the class's newest drug user and a friend made 50 copies of it. Major fireworks, major drama, and all adults who wanted to know were now in the know. I may have almost destroyed that poor thing's life, but in doing so I believe I found a faster-acting solution than DARE, a…
that's...uncool. most people grow out of drug experimentation naturally and never look back. you might have actually fucked that person's life up, compared to if you had done nothing. that's no solution, that's just plain mean.
Tongue in cheek solution. No one should do this. The fireworks enveloped us all.
Re: DARE: The Anti-Drug Program That Never Actually Worked
#18I remember DARE. A message delivered to us by people we didn't respect. A police officer that no one trusted and videos of teens we perceived to be losers telling us that drugs were bad. The program seemed to focus on social pressure not to do drugs, but social pressure is meaningless and ineffective when it's coming from somewhere beneath you. It had the effect of making my peers want to get high to distinguish themselves from the lower social class who were shown to us coming out against drugs.
From personal experience, I feel that they would have been better off focusing on the consequences to your health rather than a fumbling attempt at peer pressure. The one class when they showed pictures of a smoker's lungs was the only one that had any lasting positive impact on me.
Re: DARE: The Anti-Drug Program That Never Actually Worked
#19As a kid during a lot of this, in the 1990s, I felt DARE was stupid and pointless. It did nothing to discourage my peers nor myself from drugs. I did miss out on some cool helicopter tours and some military expos but other than that DARE was seen as a 'stupid meaningless waste of time' according to myself and peers. Maybe if it wasn't a top down approach, it might've worked. Like if they had my peers dramatize drug r…
I was a teenage DARE ambassador, taught younger kids how uncool drugs were. But that wasn't nearly as effective as the time I drew a caricature of the class's newest drug user and a friend made 50 copies of it. Major fireworks, major drama, and all adults who wanted to know were now in the know. I may have almost destroyed that poor thing's life, but in doing so I believe I found a faster-acting solution than DARE, a…
As a kid, hearing that kids were taking drugs, I always wondered what I was missing out on. The one thing that didn't make me want to take drugs were the ads saying "most kids don't smoke or do drugs".
But then everything changed when I went to college in my mid-20s and developed a strong cannabis habit. It gave purpose to my life. I'm still a daily smoker, years later, with a fulfilling job and good friends.
Re: DARE: The Anti-Drug Program That Never Actually Worked
#20Developing software has all kinds of metrics that show the team if the progress is in the right direction, effective, and future proof.
How is it a program like DARE could have gone on for so long without peering into their own performance metrics to see if the program had any value?
It's a rhetorical question. It's obviously political. A group of powerful people banked their political cred on the concept and was unwilling to admit defeat. Just like the entire drug war.