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Has D.A.R.E Been Effective?
macnigel asks: "I'm an editor of my school's newspaper and plan to write a commentary on the effectiveness of the D.A.R.E program. I would like to hear what Slashdot's audience has to say about the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program that's in place in most schools around the country. Comments and experiences are welcome. I raise this question in light of a fairly recent study by Harvard University. The study goes on to claim the sucess of a new approach to the problem of binge drinking. Should D.A.R.E try new approaches to the problem? Can D.A.R.E ever hope to impact drug abuse among youth?"
Judging by my kids response to the program at their school, I think that DARE is amazingly effective against smoking.
They hounded me so much, that I was forced to quit (good thing too).
Aren't they notorious for being largely ineffective but having tremendous pull in all sorts of local government. I've heard alot of thier strong-arm techniques on detractors -- news outlets, school officials.
Obviously the person who thought of this never had allergies. I'm allergic to dust mites, cat hair, and most women's perfumes. My life is much better with I take my daily dose of Claritin.
This seems a little outside of Slashdot's jurisdiction. Anyone agree?
I had never experienced DARE in my schools. They did it the more effective way and had the cops come in, armed with videos, stories and 9mm pistols. Nothing like using force to enforce the drug laws to kids.
Cogito, ergo sum.
Drugs Are Really Exciting!
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
The war on drugs is as intense as ever.
The political smoke is so thick (no pun intended) that nobody can tell if drug use is going up or down
The war on drugs is a total pathetic failure that deserves to be eliminated with all haste. Some other places in the world realize that "getting people with the program" probably shouldn't involve kicking down their door and throwing them in a federal prison so lonely inmates pay spiders for sex.
The libertarian party is on the rise, and to a certain extent the socialists and the greens as well. And what have we heard from their mouths? "I will grant an unconditional pardon to all non-violent convicts upon entering the oval office".
Check out Smokedot for more info on different perspectives on the War on Drugs.
You're asking did DARE succeed? I'ts a small component of a massive system that has totally fallen on its ass. So I would say no, all DARE did was give a few cops extra drinking money.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
The only problem with D.A.R.E. is that not all schools have the program. I moved around a lot when I was a kid, and some schools had the program, but others didn't. I think it would be highly effective if higher risk areas were given support, but all schools were given a little of the program.
My Second Vote Was For Gore
great comedy company.
Oh the fun you can have with two DARE bumper stickers!
DARE will never really be successful unless they are honest. If officer joe came in and told us that weed wouldn't kill you but it isn't good to do when you need to pay attention and to stay away from hardcore dealers maybe kids would get the message. I know plenty of people my age who responsibly use recreational drugs, and plenty who do too much when they need to be studying, etc. All in all, there needs to be more honesty and education. Most of what I've learned about drugs was online as there was no appropriate and unbiased education program in my school.
Also check out the D.A.R.E. node on everything2, its quite an interesting view on the issue.
Shine on, you crazy diamond.
Back when I was in school DARE was nothing but a mandatory "goof-off" class period. I don't think anyone actually paid attention to the DARE campaign. But also my school wasn't that drug infested. Other than the few bad apples (very few), my school was actually very drugging free. In the long run I don't think DARE has done anything for me. In college if someone offers you a cig., or something else, do you really think that you will think of "DARE"? But I assume that the DARE campaign is only targeted towards the young-teenage group.
In my opinion, it's something that should be done during elementary school (The last time I had to do it was in ... IIRC ... 8th grade, and I've heard of high schools doing it too. By that time, most of the students are pretty apathetic, not to mention the fact that class time should be used for instruction in the course in high school.) It's more appropriate there, and more likely to make an impact.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
I mean, I learned not to smoke or do anything when I saw Cheech and Chong's Up In Smoke. Sounds weird, but it's true. I don't got a problem if someone else around me blazes up or something, but I'm not putting a joint my lips to get high... I got caffine to do that!
www.netsyndrome.net -- designs.netsyndrome.net -- www.mobileasses.com
DARE can never hope to work. It has many obvious flaws. It is called 'DARE' which is just stupid, it appears to be aimed at 2nd graders despite the fact that it is taken in 5th. Another is that at least when i took it, the pictures in the workbooks could be erased. So me and my friends erased parts of the picture of that dumb lion and made him smoking cigarettes. Damn that was a really boring class. I think they should change it to have ex- drug addicts teach it, I think that might make it more interesting.
DARE has the POTENTIAL to be a great program, but instead, all the information it gives students is government issue propaganda. Most of the information they give you about marijuana, cocaine, LSD, and other substances is grossly inaccurate. Instead of trying to force their opinions about drugs to kids, they should gives kids actual information and let the kids decide for themselves.
- *Normality Is The Root of All Evil*
What's the government's batting average for drug programs that actually work??? Hmm... maybe .010 in a good season. Let's face it... drugs need to be treated as an addiction and not a crime. We need to inform young people about drugs by telling them the truth... not lies and more lies like the DEA does. Don't get me wrong, some of the information provided is true, however, a large amount is just plain wrong.
We need to stop spending our War on Drugs money(3 trillion in the last 12 years) on law enforment efforts and start spending more of it on prevention and addiction programs such as D.A.R.E. or AA
Thank you.
-toolj23
What does DARE do? I've been wary of anti-drugs education programs ever since being exposed to them at school and knowing, even then, that half of what we were being told was absolute crap. And that half that's instantly discredited automatically causes doubt to be applied to the rest. Does DARE do this too? How much of DARE of pseudo-morality-politics masquerading as a way of keeping kids safe? Bumper stickers don't tell you this kind of thing, and given what I've heard about local schools (students being suspended for wearing T-shirts with Nike logos, etc, education clearly isn't first priority in this country if they're willing to deprive children of education over a non-violent non-disruptive breach of the rules), I really don't trust American education programs to do anything more than try to indoctronate children with pseudo-morality.
What is DARE actually doing? I'm interested.
--
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
The phrase "just say no" is as effective in preventing drug abuse as saying "have a nice day" is in treating clinical depression.
I'm a professional, a lawyer in a big Manhattan law firm, and I can tell you that just about everyone I work with has tried weed. Some of them smoke regularly. These are successful people, very. So my experience is that weed does not automatically make you a loser and a burnout. Alcohol is a much bigger problem in every respect, and yet it its use is tolerated.
- Have a picture
Everytime I hear of "DARE" the song comes through my head by weird al yankovick.. "Dare to be Stupid"
Put down the chainsaw and listen to me. It's time for you to join in the fight. You better let your babies grow up to be cowboys. It's time to let the bug bed bite. You better put all of your eggs one basket. You better count your chickens before they hatch. You better sell some wine before its time. You better find yourself an itch to scratch. You better squeeze all the charmin you can when mr. whiffles not around. Stick your head in the microwave and give yourself a tan.. Talk with your mouth full. Bite the hand that feeds you. More than you can chew...
DARE TO BE STUPID! It's so easy now... I'll show you how.. you can dare to be STUPID!
I don't like propaganda, so I just ignore that stuff. I don't do drugs myself, but I dislike all the techniques they use to brainwash people. It's like in 1984, where the people are made to think they are being controlled for their own good and they never get a chance to explore what's out in the world, because the facts are all made from the prespective of the party and are crammed down everyone's throat.
Don't call my crazy, that's what they called me back in the home!
Nice work!
;)
I started binge drinking because D.A.R.E made me so damned depressed!
If you think you know what the hell is going on you're probably full of shit. -- Robert Anton Wilson
If you think you know what the hell is going on you're probably full of shit. -- Robert Anton Wilson
jdube is who
I'd say yes, but then again maybe it was just two isolated examples. I went to school in the US(with a DARE program) for two years before moving back here to Brazil, where we have none. Drug (ab)use here both surprises and sort of horrifies me. Weed has been accepted as "normal", and although yes it is less addicting than crack and less "harmful", it's still a drug! Binge drinking is also a problem; now, I don't know if it's just two isolated examples, but apparently it does help. Having said that, participation in DARE gave you 2 'community service' hours which was really the reason most people joined, but to compensate for that there were random drug tests periodically...was this just the school or is it part of DARE? anyway just my 2 cents. Mike
Dare is basically a delivery system for all the simplistic, vote-getting, propagandist version of anti-drug education. "Just say no" + "marijuana is as addictive (and harmful) as crack" + "make sure you tell on anyone you know uses illegal drugs, including your parents".
With their simple catch-phrase style, its easy for them to protect their positions, and expand into areas that don't have it now. "What, you don't think we should tell the kids to say no to drugs?" Its all about fear; get the kids to scared of drugs to try them, keep everyone around the kids too scared to use drugs because the kids are being told to rat everyone to the cops, and keep the parents and faculty who disagree with their policy scared to speak out. Bringing "soft on crime!" political shouts to PTA meetings near you!
I'm very unhappy about how my little sister is being educated. They've got DARE, they've got rules that say they have to use a school-supplied (4") binder, they have to haul 30 or 40 pounds of books and work home every day (the kids get hell if they leave their books in their lockers, even if they don't have homework), and all the standard control-freak elementary school rules as well. I can't even get her to conceptualize that not everything she gets told in school is automatically the perfect truth, and I really get annoyed when I hear about all the crap there.
Intolerant people should be shot.
Has anyone wondered why /. posts these articles? I know exactly why! So that we can make really corny jokes, that are funny, about the article and the situtation. Then, has anyone ever wondered why the media has no fucking clue what they are ever talking about?
A group of higher education associations are recommending that government officials, college administrators and researchers abstain from using the term "binge drinking" to describe student alcohol consumption. Members of the Inter-Association Task Force on Alcohol and Other Substance Abuse Issues, an umbrella organization of 21 higher education associations, claim that the term may actually encourage alcohol consumption by leading students to believe that heavy drinking is a campus norm. "The use of the term 'binge drinking' has hurt our effort in controlling alcohol abuse on campus," said Edward Hammond, chairman of the National Collegiate Alcohol Awareness Week.
In order to read the whole atricle search for Binge drinking here
-- If i knew what i was doing i'd make sure not to do it again --
From the CNN article referencedn g/
v el/
http://www.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/03/14/binge.drinki
"Bingers were defined as male students who had at least five drinks in a row on at least one occasion in the two weeks before the survey, or women students who downed at least four drinks in a row. A "drink" was defined as 12 ounces of beer or wine cooler, 4 ounces of wine or a 1.25-ounce shot of liquor.
From a CNN article when the new 0.08 drunk driving standard came in.
http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/10/23/blood.alcohol.le
A 170-pound man could consume approximately four drinks in an hour on an empty stomach before reaching 0.08 limit, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration statistics cited by MADD. A 137-pound woman could have three drinks in an hour before reaching 0.08.
So if I have this straight. Four drinks you are still OK to drive. Five drinks you're a binge drinker. That must be one heck of a fifth drink.
I "graduated" from DARE the first year it came out. Granted it has changed since then, but when I look back at it, the majority of things tought were either outright lies or didn't work.
My mother (Hi mom) was on the local DARE board, then finally quit and told me she didn't think it was doing any good.
(People in gerneral and) Teens are going to do drugs if they want to. Nothing is going to change that. They will overdose on heroin and die, get drunk and drive and die, get addicted to tobacco at age 14, etc.
Trying to force them to do otherwise will make some want to do it even more. I don't see programs like DARE or 'get tough on crime' doing anything to help, but rather I think education is the key. Sites like Erowid or Rhodium can do more good through education than fear-mongering can do.
[OT - Am I a felon for linking those sites?]
,
faeryman
Lets reform DARE into an actually education program about abuse instead of a propaganda machine.
--
Vote Nader 2000! http://www.votenader.org
My big objection to DARE is that it is taught by law enforcement and at too early an age it seems.
I see very young grade schoolers associated with DARE meetings and it seems that by the time they are actually old enough to go party, DARE is a distant memory if one at all.
I smoke pot now and then and I would say it makes my life a bit richer but I never progressed to anything harder partly because I never really heard any conflicting messages about stuff like heroin. Everybody from Burroughs to Keith Richards pretty much says that you are a chump if you start using smack so I figured...Gee, they are probably right. Give accurate info about drugs, legal and otherwise and nature will do the rest.
As a 16 year old, and a "graduate" of the dare program, I would like to share my experience with the D.A.R.E. program. Well, it's not so much an experience as it is a simple sentence. 3 years after we finished D.A.R.E., almost EVERYONE is my class gets drunk every weekend. About 25% smokes weed, and I don't know how many (but it's not much) do any harder drugs, though I doubt many are into those. yet. So, dare is a joke. My generation isn't going to listen to a bunch of police officers telling us drugs aren't the way to go. They're just too stupid.
---
Just from my personal experience with DARE and the health classes in my school, the basic effect is: 10% recognize the dangerous effects. 50% don't aren't swayed either way. 40% realize that the teachers, parents, and police don't want them to be drinking and smoking, so they have added incentive to do it.
And of the 10% that recognized the dangerous effects, I'd say at least half do it anyways. No-one has given them a good enough reason why not to. Most kids in middle school, especially, have no way to comprehend what their actions will cause in the future. And most kids in high school have friends a few years older than them who partied hard in high school, went to college and partied hard, and still ended up with normal jobs, normal families, and the whole bit. No-one has given a good enough reason not to do it (if one exists).
On a funny note, in health class we watched a video about binge drinking Americans crossing the border into Mexico. The video was kids partying with half naked members of the opposite sex while drinking their brains out and having the time of their life, intersperced with parents and police preaching the dangers of alcohol use. ...right, whatever you say...
Go look through some back issues of rolling stone
magazine (and/or their web site, i get the rag so
i don't bother with the web site). They have done
lots of drug war coverage, with a long article about DARE in particular in the last year.
At least where I came from, the D.A.R.E. program was used in elemetry school, and nothing was really used in older grades. I found that, while everyone in 5th grade vowed never to do drugs, by the time they got to high school or whatever, they had forgotten that vow. Basically, it was effective in the short term, but not in the long term. Of course, the question wasn't asked if the D.A.R.E. program is a good idea... frankly, it is probably made less effective by the fact that it presents misinformation... if someone has friends who smoke pot, and they find out that it won't necessarly ruin your life, they may discount the entire D.A.R.E. message. Eliza
http://www.grass.org/~eliza "You've got to dance like nobody is watching and love like it is never going to hurt."
First, I want to qualify this: I drink on occasion, but I have never done and don't plan to ever do any prohibited drugs.
When the DARE program began, it had a more pure mission of _educating_ school-age children as to the dangers of drugs. However, as it has aged they began to realize that their program of education was not as effective as they liked, for the simple reason that as you start teaching younger and younger children, teaching by way of logical argument gets harder and teaching by way of rote memorization gets easier. Therefore, the DARE education to middle-school aged children has degenerated into cartoon propaganda booklets and endless waves of police officers saying "Drugs are bad, mmkay?"
I consider this educational shift unfortunate and dangerous. It is no longer education, it is indoctrination, and done before an age that most of the subjects are even able to understand why they are being indoctrinated without an authority figure to shove it down their throat.
Now, let me tell you why I consider this indoctrination bad. When you are very young, think kindergarten, first grade, your brain is just not ready to think about things logically, and some "programming" is necessary to be able to get you to that point. Thus, learning multiplication tables, singing your ABCs, etc. However, middle-school age is where the logical parts of your brain start to kick in, and I think that this growth should be encouraged instead of being indoctrinated away.
So I guess you could say that my objection is not to DARE itself, but as to how the program is taught. IMHO, the ends do not justify the means. I mean, in 1984, everyone was "happy", but at what cost? Is this a cost you are willing to pay?
-inq
(Note: Full permission to quote segments of this passage or reprint it in its entirety are unconditionally granted.)
they teach students the DARE program twice when you are in school here. once in middle school and again when you are a freshman in high school. one morning as i was watching the morning news, i saw our DARE office being arrested for selling drugs to the students he taught. is that irony or what?!
Cannabis does have one nasty side-effect. If you're worried about something and you smoke too much weed you get nightmare panic attacks. But I love it when I smoke the odd spliff and can't stop giggling. Amsterdam is my favourite city in the world closely followed by Copenhagen.
Translation of today's Ask Slashdot: "I'm a lazy bastard and can't investigate my own stories, so I want you guys to write a store about D.A.R.E. for me. Only serious comments please."
First question they asked my daughter in second grade was "Does anyone you know use Drugs?"
Her reply "My dad smokes Marijuana, and he's not ashamed." She was excused from the program for the rest of the year.
Ben Masel: 51,282 votes for US Senate in the Wisconsin Democratic Primary
I've never tried any kind of narcotics or otherwise brain/body damaging chemicals, but I consciously made this decision before D.A.R.E. was taught in my classroom (I was about nine or ten, I think). This means it was already too late. Not only did I make that decision, but I already knew about the popular drugs and their effects. For D.A.R.E. to be truly effective, they must one-up the street knowledge in educating me, even if it means teaching me if I'm four. That's early, you say? You think the drug pushers are going to wait just because I'm too young?
By this time, I already knew about a dozen classmates who smoked/drank and even a few who tried marijuana.
On the flip side of this, though, it's been published that drug use in teens is actually down, so something is working, maybe it's D.A.R.E., I dunno. I'm sure D.A.R.E. has changed a lot in the past ten years (I'm 20 now), and maybe their approach is more effective than it was with me.
Every major-party candidate for a major office in this country is totally for the drug war, and totally against any consideration of decrim/rescheduling/legalization/medicalization of marijuana. They are too afraid to heed the will of the people on this issue.
So the re-legalization of marijuana is a grass-roots effort, with some fringe parties (such as the Greens and Libertarians) racing to catch up with the bandwagon. Despite what you say, the drug war is very well represented indeed among the electable class.
What we need is constant pressure from the grass roots for change. That is why I'm voting for Nader this year.
- Have a picture
A New Republic article (March 3, 1997) by Stephen Glass reported on some of the studies:
The bulk of the article was not on this subject, but on the remarkably brazen efforts by DARE (a near billion-dollar industry when you add up the programs nationwide and in 40+ countries) to intimidate researchers, deny them funds, slander them, etc.
Alas, all articles by Stephen Glass, were thrown into disrepute a year or so later, when it was found that he had been inventing facts in various of his works. Any ammunition DARE could have asked for to discredit this story was instantly provided.
That does not mean that for the DARE article, Glass work was tainted. The studies referred to above do exist, and the researchers involved really have been slandered and intimidated.
It would be very gratifying to hear of DARE losing converts among school systems.
Happened In 198-fucking-4!!!!!
What the HELL is this article doing on Slashdot? Serriously.. Has this become some forum like IRC where worthless conversations drown out the one or two good threads a day? Can I please here about something REMOTELY related to "news for nerds"?
I was in the DARE program in 5th. There are many flaws in such a program. Most 5th graders in my class at the time said "No, I'll never do drugs", but people grow up and change. I don't think that DARE would work, even if you made kids go through it until you are out of high school. I think that parent involvement is a biggie. I know I had parents who I could share almost anything with. The parents need to be involved with their kids.
In all actuality, I haven't done drugs after health 1 class at my high school. Considering we did in depth studies on drug use and what they do to your body I decided I didn't need that stuff.
That's just my 2 cents on why Dare doesn't work
All the video games said "Say no to Drugs" on the intro screen? Then some of them say stay in school. It's funny to see those when you skip school!
... at least most times.
I probably was (with the exception of good old C2H5OH) scared off drugs, but mostly due to my mom being a nurse and telling me some stories about nasty hyperallergic reactions. They only hit me because I saw how innocent people were damaged by idiots spiking punch bowls and the like with narcotics. And probably because I had a drug allergy or six too, and was very conscious of how I would likely be allergic to non-prescription drugs too.
But most kids can't be scared off something their friends are into by Bullsh*t. Most drug "education" comes under this category because it follows the "all drugs bad, all drugs evil, all drugs kill you, make you loser" approach. As someone else pointed out, it fails to distinguish hard drugs from soft drugs.
The big drug of interest seems to be Ecstasy where I'm at. And the amount of bogus rumor about it is gross. The drug-busters all blather on with the "bad! bad!" chant, while the Ravegoers and many others find the Rave drug experience offers something transcendent. If anything it brings people closer together. In many ways, alcahol is far more dangerous than E or weed. It has known bad effects and often turns people into instant @ssholes.
The major marketing hurdle to drug education is the belief that a simple (but flawed) message is what kids need. The fact is, if you aren't selling truth, kids will realize that and throw out the message completely. You lose crediblity.
The major technical hurdle is that with many of the newer designer or engineered drugs, people don't yet know the full scientific details of the effects. It takes years to know. Experimentation with these drugs is just that - playing craps with your lives. Most casual users/experimenters don't consider the possibility of long term damage that doesn't manifest for years to come.
And the law enforcement community tries to scare people off using rhetoric when they lack facts. Instead of just sanely saying "this drug seems to contain these substances, here is why we believe there is a risk now and later...", they end up lying and trying to feed the kids a line of Bullsh*t.
Kids are inexperienced. Kids think they know more than they do. Kids think they'll live forever and can't get hurt. (I remember that phase!). But Kids are NOT STUPID. Kids Today are also very media savvy (moreso than the last generation)and can smell a line of BS a mile away!
If we treat kids like they are incapable of understanding any substantive risks, then they will figure out we think they are incapable of thought and will treat us with the same level of respect....
Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.
Aris
people will use them. As long as you can't drink until you're 21, people will do it.
Oh, and it's enjoyable. In general, people will do something that's very enjoyable even if there are consequences. We just work like that.
Moller
Everybody denies I am a genius--but nobody ever called me one!
well, let me put it this way, my parents decided to pull me out of public school and place me in a private school. This was right before my old school had decided to start the DARE program there. The private school that I attended had no DARE program, and never started one. When I met back up with my old freinds from public school when I went to high school, I had learned that all of them had either expiramented with drugs or were continual users. So, from my expirience, no, it hasn't been effective, but who am I to judge? I didn't even take the program.
DARE when I grew up in high school was pretty much cops coming in and saying, "Drugs are bad. Stay away from them." That was it. No presentations on how they were bad, no ways to know how to escape peer pressure, nothing.
.). We don't need Mr. Cop, who already may have a bad rap because he just does his job and puts people in jail who ruin only their own lives or choose to do drugs in the sanctity of their own homes, telling us that what he says is the only way to go because he's the law.
And drugs were fairly uncommon, but noticeable, in my school. I saw kids trading marijuana, acid and speed quite often. Sometimes when you'd pass a bathroom during a class, it would smell of smoke, either cigarettes or marijuana.
I think DARE needs a good rehaul. It needs to take the time to educate not only students, but teachers and parents, on how to resist the "bad drugs", and how to make the choices of your life.
To me, if you want to grow your own plants for your own consumption, more power to you bud! If you want to grow cocao plants to powder your nose, or hemp to smoke away some worries, whatever, you should be fully allowed.
Someone coming up to you saying "Don't, it's bad." isn't going to change someone's behaviour or choice at all. Even someone saying "Drugs kill!" won't make much difference in today's society.
We need better education as to what REALLY drugs do (c'mon, is marijuana really a gateway drug or is peer pressure? Cocaine used to be used for a local anesthetic for eye surgery . .
Drugs, nudity and foul language are all bad things to show on television these days in the USA, and killing someone or beating them up with a 2x4 is perfectly acceptable primetime drama. We're really screwed up.
Sorry about the rant, I guess my tangents had too many points before they could revert to the circle again.
Dragon Magic
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
It sure has got my cousin a few laughs with the bumper sticker that is also my sig
D A R E Doughnut Abuse Resistence Education
Umm... Cowboy Neil?
Why not have a computer generated random testing? Say 5 kids or something similar a week, and those names that are already tested go back into the system. Whoever appears positive for the test gets a boot from school or something..? Hell, the kids I knew doing drugs in high school would watch a DARE commercial and laugh....
oh welps...
Who's the black private dick, who's a sex machine for all the chicks?
This should not have been posted to slashdot... while it is flattering to have slashdot's opinion asked about issues, I do not read slashdot to find out about drug-abuse issues. Specifically ones not pertinent to technology.
However, I am a high school student in Atlanta, GA who has taken DARE and I will answer. No, DARE is not effective. The students that would not drink anyway do not. The students that would not take drugs anyway do not. DARE does not lean the students in the middle toward not using these substances. Almost everyone I know has tried marijuana and certaintly has drunk before. I also know many straight-A students who are on their way to ivy league schools who use marijuana, ecstasy, and many who drink. DARE just doesn't work. "Educating" students about the negative consequence doesn't work. Experiencing them does... I smoked pot for three years (grades 6 - 9) and my memory has certaintly been negatively affected. I stopped. Similarly, knowing people who have been hit by drunk driver or people who have driven while drunk has influenced me not to do so. In any situation, there is no substitute for real experience. Education only gets you so close.
Kspett
Kevin "Cash Money" Spett
Ignore your rights and they go away.
DARE doesn't deal with drug abuse. It just makes a blanket statement that all drugs are bad. And that all drug users are bad people. And that drug use is abuse unless the government has approved the drug for "use".
I find it amusing the example you use for why drugs are bad. It is the usual bullshit. The negative detriment you archetype is a fallacy in all but the most severe cases.
Stop demonizing drug users.
I liked the guy, and I believed him. I won a DARE T-Shirt for writing the best anti-drug essay.
When I arrived at college, I had several lingering questions about drugs and the War upon them. I made a point to visit my school library's extensive collection of books on the subject and read just about every one. I discovered -- after reading first-hand accounts of dealers, chemists, psychologists, social workers and academic researchers -- that many of the sure-fire conclusions (like 'pot is bad b/c it is addictive') preached in DARE were highly inaccurate. I realized that DARE's logic was founded on the juvenile, rhetorical mantra that Drugs are Bad Because They Are Illegal. Drugs are Illegal Because They Are Bad.
For the first time in my life, it dawned upon me that if the government could blatantly tell lies to me under the pretext of "safety" and "education," the government could lie about other things.
I began to think critically about other government-supported "certainties." I began to question my government's motives, and found that many of its policies -- just like the War on Drugs -- were based on simple, hysterical jingoism.
I think drug education in public school is a positive thing. However, DARE is far from unbiased, informative drug education. DARE represents the intrusion of law enforcement and fundamentally unsound political policy into the American classroom.
Sincerely,
Vergil
Insects and Grafitti Photos
and I think "nerds" are more likely to be depressed, and, thus, use drugs, especially at a younger age when they feel "no one" can identify with them. I knew several "A+" students that turned to "D-" gutter trash in less than a year.
- Have a picture
What we have here is a case where good people with good intentions have lost there credibility through hyperbole.
How did the model program reduce binge drinking? Through reality. It showed students that there was no need to drink yourself silly in an attempt to keep up.
How could DARE actually work? Through reality. Instead of saying 'pot kills', they should say that pot will reduce your performance. (I think they should still be allowed to say that CRACK and sniffing glue kills?)
The point is that people who are still trying to figure out how the world works are incredibly sensitive to hypocrisy, and they invariably reject it out of hand once it is found. A rejected hypocrit is not an authority, no matter whose uniform they are wearing. Iff DARE is to be effective, they must present the most solid research in the frankest manner possible.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
It gets what they want you to hear out in the open, which != the true information. The reality is smoking pot is no worse than drinking alcohol. One causes Liver Disease, one causes Lung Cancer, one fucks with your brain, the other fucks with your brain. There's always going to be the "rebel" mindset as long as marijuana is illegal, that will never change a thing. Pardon my anti-establishmentarianism but the shirts make you look like a tool, and Most people laugh at you for wearing them, because the war against drugs is a farce.
;) Nowthen DARE admittedly might have helped people decide not to do the harder drugs, I know I haven't but that's because one of my ex girlfriends was addicted to coke and was in bad bad shape. I figured out on my own that wasn't what I wanted. With that being said, I think the grotesque showing of the heroin and meth addicts the Government is showing in their commercials are the most potent ads they've had yet. Hard drugs are bad, Marijuana isn't a hard drug. Just for the record though, I haven't smoked in over a year, because for the most part I haven't wanted to. I wouldn't turn it down if someone offered, but other then that, there's no need.
Red Ribbon week was my favorite time of the year, we'd all be asked to sign the petition saying we'd be drug free for the year, and then after school we'd all smoke some weed and get drunk. If you think Alcohol isn't a drug, you're on crack, which is also a drug.
cheese logs keep my wang warm at night.
Tobacco is a known bad choice and in general if you do anything like that you deserve what you get. The evidence is overwhelming, the companies have been caught lieing, the bodies are there, and the data there too. Smoking is stupid period. Of course you can smoke if you want to, but that dosn't mean that smokers have the fight to health insurance, medicar/medicaid, or getting packs of cigs for more than $20.00 a pack either.
Respond to s
I went through all the DARE stuff as a youngster and thought cop that came in to talk to us was the coolest. I was a very good student and didn't drink or do drugs all throughout school up untilthe very end of my high school career. I was also at the top of the state in cross country, and I even was one of the athletes that went around to class rooms and told kids not to drink and why - along with kids I knew were using drugs. As a result I didn't go to a lot of parties and lost out on a lot of the social side of life. I then proceeded to get really loaded on Molsen Ice the last day of school and then the next day went on to win state qualifiers. That right there pretty much told me the whole thing was bullshit. I went to off to one fo the top schools in the nation (Williams College) and drank a ton and competed at the national level of cross country. I tried pot and shrooms and then drank a lot more. I never went back to the drugs but drank a lot and it wasn't until recently I finally decided it was just time to drink less and thereby spend a lot less time face down in my own vomit.
- --
lesson learned because of DARE? No. Lesson learned because I'm mature enough to watch my own health and monitor my own health level. Yes.
Did I need government intervention and did any of the laws help me out? No. We drank regardless of our age, and we coudl get anything regardless of our age. Legalize it all, make people aware of how much of various substances will do to you, what you will feel, why that happens and why it might be wron gin the long run, and then let them fuck it up or do it right all by themselves. We can't handhold everyone and we shouldn't.
When I was in college I did a 3D graphics internship where I modeled in 3D what happens on the cellular level in your brain as you take and abuse various "illegal" drugs as well as "legal" ones. All very interesting - the only one that I truly would avoid from fear of harm is E - all the others don't do so much damage to your brain (coke wrecks your sinuses when snorted b/c it is abrasive to the soft tissue there) - they are just addictive and are likely to fuck up your life due to what happens to your bank account.
long and short of it - DARE kept me off drugs and alcohol while I was in elementary and most of high school - those are relatively important years in bodily development and I did well in school... would have been different if I han't been a part of DARE? probably, so I am for it. the only chance I would make is to educate further as to what really happens instead of saying that they are "bad" and make you feel "bad" and evil and all that. say they make you feel really good, but tell them what it does to all the organs and why that is bad.
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There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
Awareness of potentional problems is always good, and will always help prevent abuse. ... etc)have done studies, who paid them to do it, and what there results where in order to write an informative piece.
to what degree will need to be determined by non-biased studies. I would wager that nobody on this site is qualified to answer your question.
you need to find out if any think tanks(Rand group
My problem with DARE is they assume guilt.
When my friends teenage sons school started DARE, they had to sign a paper that said they would "stop using drugs..." which implies that the signor of the paper was doing drugs.
Since you are a young Journalist, I implore you to include all the facts, and not lower yourself to todays journalist standard.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
In seperate cases, police officers who were representatives of the DARE program were found selling drugs. If that's not a contradictory message, I don't know what is. :)
And here's the counter site.
I demand a million helicopters and a DOLLAR!
What part of what I said was untrue? Point it out and we can discuss - but to say I'm wrong is bullshit. I can back up what I said with science - I'm not against drug use. But I am against some guy spending all of his welfare check on crack instead of paying for his rent. Why? I went to school with assholes that unfortunately had tough lives - I'm truly sorry for them - but instead of having any initiative and getting out of it, they gave up and got into crack because it made them feel good. they then went on to drop out of high school and entered the "real world" with no real appreciable skills to offer and thereby got no jobs. But they did have this little crack habit, so they got on welfare and robbed people's houses to keep up the habit.- --
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There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
Well, invariably, a few of the kids are going to try marijuana. They'll try it, probably like it, and find that they aren't addicted too it. So, they think that maybe the cops are full of it. So, then they try some other things, and soon enough they tread on to the ground of something that is dangerous and addictive.
What kids need is real honest information about the effects of the drugs. They should distinguish between drug use (the occasional drink with friends or a glass of wine with dinner) and drug abuse (binge drinking and full blown alcoholism).
Now, to the credit of these organizations like DARE, they are a branch of a government that has chose to enforce a completely irrational drug policy. They can't go into schools and tell kids the truth and that using drugs isn't wrong but that abusing drugs is. If they did that, the politicians would look like fools and liars, and we can't have that. So what they do tell them is what they have to tell them to keep them out of jail.
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This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
In my youth, I was a victim of several just say no type programs at my school... they had the cop come and tell us not to do drugs and all that stuff. But regardless of what they say, what it comes down to is me making the choice to do that stuff. I personaly don't drink or do much drugs because I think it's a waste of money and kind of pathetic. However lots of my friends do all that stuff.... one of them has a D.A.R.E. tee shirt that he likes to wear when he gets high.
I think people always have experimented with drugs and probably always will. I think just demonizing them doesn't really do anything but make kids curious... and that what we need to do just help kids make informed decisions about what drugs they're gonna take. For example, the people who would come to my school and tell me never to do anything would put pot and crack in the same boat, telling me they were both as bad, when we all know that a few joints won't kill you but crack will ruin your life.
Instead of just telling kids not to do anything, schools and D.A.R.E. people should discuss the short and long term effects and addictiveness of many drugs, so we won't be thrown out into the world knowing only what tv tells us when we grow up.
So quick with fear you tiny fools!
c. brain damage. Your brain only has so many cells to go around and you have to preserve them for later when you actually start to loose them to things like old age and various types of trauma, etc. Notice one of the really big indicators of drug use is low test scores. These figures are supported very frankly by educators and people who are runing ACT/SAT tests.
That's bullshit. I "inhaled" for awhile, and eventually stopped. Sometime thereafter I took an IQ test. I qualified for and subsequently joined Mensa, the High IQ society. (My score, btw, was beyond the minimum required level.)
Sure, do acid constantly, shoot smack, snort coke and you'll have problems. You *could* even kill yourself, and that's not a Good Thing. Blanket "brain damage" statements however indicate propaganda.
Graham
Graham
Linux - Fast Pane Relief
The people who put on the "DARE" show think they're doing something good. In truth, they seem to be promoting ignorance and intolerance more than anything.
... end of story. The programs where more kids benefit are the ones that say, "Here's what sex is, here's how to be safe, and here are the problems you can run into when you aren't safe".
Look at it like sex education. The least healthy sex ed. programs have a message of "do not have
sex, sex causes problems"
A lot of kids discover that some drugs are a little different than the war proponents make them out to be. Take pot. Johnny finds out that weed doesn't really turn you into an instant loser / sociopath. So he thinks everything D.A.R.E. told him about drugs being dangerous was exaggerated.
I think D.A.R.E. would do better to do more teaching and less preaching. Instead of painting an enemy, and saying "Take drugs and you'll be like that", try to build a little trust by being honest up-front.
Abuse is what hurts people, not use. Teach kids the difference.
I mean, my school system wanted to bring in dogs to check lockers for drug items. Randomly, too. They claimed that lockers were the property of the schools, and as such, the school had the right to search them as they pleased.
The drug testing was a notion as well. Saying that kids while in the schools were the responsibility of the schools and they could remove anyone who would be too burdensome.
I dunno whether your comment was meant to be funny, but mine was pretty serious with what they did. My only question is, Don't the schools belong to the people? So the lockers would then be property of the public, not the schools, and if the public is going to school there and want to use them for drug hideouts, well, the schools have to oblige.
Not promoting such usage, but when will the US government learn that it's a government OF the people, BY the people, and FOR the people, not our mother and father who tells us how things will be. Time to remake our government, don't you think? Or at least wake them up this next election?
Dragon Magic
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
The problem is that these students, despite what test scores say, arent stupid. While a few naive ones might buy the DARE stuff, most take it with a few lbs of salt. They (we) have other avenues of information, from word of mouth to the Internet. When other info conflicts with DARE....DARE is dismissed(and this is ignoring the whole reverse-psychology angle). Which is too bad because while drug use in moderation might not be all that bad, teenagers rarely if ever use drugs of any kind responsibly. Teenagers dont sit around a table sipping bear in conversation, but rather chug beer to look cool and get wasted. Marijuana might not be medically addictive, but once teens start smoking, it as often as not becomes their primary activity, even ignoring the greater chance of doing harder stuff.
I don't have a solution really. People often assume because DARE and similar programs are all propaganda, and dismiss all studies in which (illegal, not tobacco or alchohol) drug use is harmful. For instance, at both my college and old high school there are groups that are pro-pot anti-tobacco. They complain about tobaccos cancer causing chemicals and think ppl should smoke marijuana. Yet pot is 33 times more carcigenic. My generation may be the best at it (lots of practice) but even our bullshit screen isnt perfect.
"A 10-year-old Newport Beach, California girl named Amber escaped a would-be abductor near her home last weekend. Then, with TV cameras rolling, she credited the DARE officer at her school for teaching her what to do. You can bet hundreds of DARE police officers throughout the nation were whooping when they saw that...
"How well does it work? That's a crapshoot; we can never say for sure," said Lynne Bloomberg, who coordinates the DARE program for the Newport Mesa Unified School District. "But I'm wholeheartedly convinced it's worth doing." Just ask Amber. She'd just gotten off her bicycle to pick flower in her Eastbluff neighborhood when someone pulled up in a truck, opened the door and tried to grab her. Amber said she knew from her DARE officer not to get close enough that he could reach her and that she should scream and run like crazy to get away. "
Other than the humorous image of a bunch of cops "whooping" when they heard about Amber's actions (whooping ass? the imagination soars...), I found this story odd.
For one thing, note the logic error of the D.A.R.E. spokesperson when talking about whether or not D.A.R.E. works:
"...we can never say for sure. But I'm wholeheartedly convinced it's worth doing."
There you go! We can't say for sure, but I just did. What more proof do you need?
Secondly, what has this got to do with D.A.R.E? Dare to avoid sex offenders? Furthermore, why did Amber credit D.A.R.E for teaching her not to get into trucks with strange men? Didn't her parents provide this salient fact?
I find this to be part of the larger trend of people shirking personal responsibility. Parents should teach morality to their children, not outsiders in the school. Otherwise, whose morality gets taught? The morality that says weed is not as bad as crack and heroin? Or the morality that says all drugs are universally and equally bad, including that aspirin, you naughty boy! D.A.R.E has to choose one parent's morality and not the other. Predictably, of course, they chose the easy to remember, Claritin will lead to a life of depravity, level of morality.
________________
________________
Private Essayist
I have never been involved in DARE, or have even known anyone who was. However, I have been in 3 different AODA (Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse) groups. The problem with all of them is that I did not want to quit. This is the main problem with drugs in America, and I assume the rest of the world. The people usually don't want to quit. On the same note, this is why AA (Alcoholic's Anonymous) has such a great success to failure ratio. The people who attend AA meetings usually want to quit.
DARE, nor any other AODA group, can wish to even come close to stopping the drug abuse in America, with their current approaches, as none of them (at least those that I have heard of) give drug abusers a good reason to stop.
Most groups use "education" as their main weapon. What they call education, is really just a scare tactic. When many drug abusers are scared, what do they do? That's right folks, they get high. If they don't get high, they usually use their great denial systems to tell themselves that either they are different from the examples the AODA groups use, or they just forget about it.
Another major apporach of AODA groups is peer counseling. Again, the members need to have a desire to stop. How can your peers help you quit if they don't want to quit or aren't quitting themselves?
It applies here as much or more than in the medical world; "prevention is easier than healing". Groups who wish to stop drug abuse in America need to focus on giving children a reason not to do drugs in the first place. This is as easy as one person volunteering a saturday a month to help the kids in the community organize a football game, a game of hide n' seek, or a table tennis tournament. What are most of us thinking on Saturday, though? "Finally time for myself". Where, then, do we get off complaining about the group of drug runners on the Monday night news selling drugs to kids? The Boys and Girls Club of America (BGCA) gets props here.
Some non-AODA groups are very effective at reducing the drug abuse among children. As mentioned above, the BGCA is very effective. Drug abuse among children (people under the age of 16) is signiicantly less within a mile of a BGCA than the rest of the city that occupies it. Another good group is the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. They show many children every day that there are respectable people in the world who don't use drugs. When their peers can't tell them "everyone does it", they have an excuse not to.
Another great way to prevent children from abusing drugs is to talk about it openly. Not only with our kids, but in society in general. We need to remove the taboo status from drugs, so that our children aren't aren't afraid to apporach us. If you've had "the drug talk" with your children, how many questions did they ask? Also, if your child can openly tell you he smoked some pot last Friday, it will make the task of preventing him from doing it again easier, as well as the shock of his possibly becoming a drug abuser, lending you a clearer head when trying to stop it.
In the end, we will never stop drug abuse. there will always be those people who wish to do drugs. You will not stop these people. We need to concentrate on those people who don't wish to do drugs, as our efforts will yield more profits. Some say this is unfair to those you wish to do drugs. Well, do it you way, then, but I have tried to help many people quit using drugs, and those who wish to use drugs are impossible to help quit.
I had DARE as a kid, and as near as I can tell, all the good it did was to give cops something else to do. Like we have always said.... D.A.R.E to keep cops off streets. bad cop, no doughnut.
The DARE program says drugs are bad. Naw, really? Not only is the program a waste of time, it's a waste of money. They should be spending it to show the truth. Seeing pictures that say "Drugs = Cancer" isn't really as strong, as compared to a crackhead saying what he has, or pictures of the tumor. This is just like the issue with sex ed - some ignorant teachers say "You'll die if you have sex before you get married." That is not the right approach to things. I'd rather have a class on safe sex than waste time/money to just say "Don't have sex".
BUT I can tell you with certainty that I have four cousins, an ex-brother-in-law and a former coworker, who have totally ruined themselves on drugs, mostly pot and cocaine. They have lost their jobs, their spouses, their hopes, and in the case of two of the cousins, their lives.
The ex-brother-in-law tries to fly right sometimes, but invariably he succumbs to the drugs again every few months. It's as if he will always have this intrinsic weakness, always preventing him from building a productive, happy life.
I don't have any patience for people who try to apologize and legitimize illegal drugs, or say 'they are not so bad'. If this is you, you're dead wrong, and you will pay dearly for your addictions.
The 'drug war' is a sad failure, but that's doesn't mean drugs are good. Considering the damage they cause in human terms, we really ought to come down on it a lot harder than we already do.
It wasn't the least bit difficult for me to stay off drugs, not with all these abusers, losers and failures in plain sight. It's smart to learn from your own mistakes, but FAR BETTER to learn from others' mistakes. (You'll never have time to make all of them yourself.)
A clean, sober, successful life is it's own reward. If you don't think so, you simply haven't tried it.
I think that a true education about the different consequences of different drugs and different amounts of drug use would be much more effective. In the long run more kids might smoke marijuana, but I think that fewer kids will even consider using something as addictive and dangerous as heroin.
-Matt
Phluid!
www.norml.org
- Have a picture
Of all my experiences in school with anti-drug programs, there was only incident that would have convinced me not to do drugs if I ever had the desire. A recovering drug addict came to our class one day, and gave a speech about drug use/abuse. Instead of starting out with the normal "all drugs are bad - they'll instantly screw you up" opening, he told us that if we went a smoked pot or did crack at that very moment, we would feel better than we did at that moment. Everyone was stunnedm, since we had never heard anything like this from an anti-drug proponent. However, he went on to tell us that although we would feel better for a short period of time, it would suck in the long run, and he used himself as an example. His method really got the point across. Anti-drug programs like DARE need to acknowledge the fact that drugs DO make you feel better in the short term, but the long term consequences are terrible. This is like acknowledging that it is pleasant to jump of a building, as you have the sensation of weightlessness, but once you reach the cement below, it's not so pretty. Kids shouldn't be blatantly decieved, but rather should be told the complete truth. This would be more effective than any DARE-like program. -Peter
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
This has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the Slashdot topics! Damnit! Keep it on topic. Ask slashdot has been completely worthless lately.
I agree: I'm twenty now, and never smoked weed or drank until I got to university. From my perspective (and from the perspective of my peers), the D.A.R.E. program and its cohorts represent an incredibly naive view of the drug situation. It tries to scare teenagers to adopt the silly view that alcohol and weed are as dangerous, or even more dangerous than crack, heroine or other obviously more illicit, nasty stuff.
Rather than try to establish simple moral reason and judgment in children, the DARE system propagandizes
- fear ("Don't want me to have to arrest do you?"),
- ignorance ("All of this stuff will kill you!"),
- and social ineptitude ("You shouldn't hang out with these 'bad' people!").
Until the program realises that preaching fear and lies doesn't work, it will continue to be a failure. In addition, sending out wanky cops to scare little kids ought to be a crime. Kids are already disillusioned enough.If you want to read more about ONDCP corruption/craziness and their so-called "war on drugs" (and American culture!), you should comb through salon.com. They have published a number of insightful articles on the ONDCP over the past year.
Frontline did a good show on marijuana law a few years ago. Hidden in the site is the most well thought out essay on the drug war I've ever read (its by an appeals court judge).
An excerpt from the transcript of the show (actually germaine to the DARE topic, the guy is a DARE person that goes to schools):
> BRET RICHARDSON: Just last week, I had one of my
> students come to me to tell me about one of his
> relatives, and he wants something done about it,
> so the information has been turned over to our
> drug task force. I tell them all the
> ramifications of that choice that they are
> making, and if they want the police involved in
> it, it's going to disrupt the family life. And
> then it's up to the student to decide if that's
> the direction they want it to go. We don't
> encourage the kids to spy. That's not my role.
> I'm there as instructor, not as an enforcement
> officer.
Hmm, "We don't encourage the kids to spy." I have to wonder if thats true. I remember the Nazi's encouraged children to rat on their parents.
> 1st BOY: I really didn't know much about
> marijuana. I didn't know what harmful effects it
> can do on your life and stuff like that. I mean,
> it's really nice to know now. And I made the
> decision not to do marijuana or any drug.
> 2nd BOY: It just- like, it can hurt you, and it
> kills you and stuff if you do too much of it.
I think the worst thing about DARE is the untruth of most of their arguments. For one they and other war on drugs propaganda organizations tend to refer to all illicit drugs as "drugs", not often making distinctions between different drugs, i.e. "Drug will kill you." Ok, that is possible with heroin, cocaine, alchol, and tobacco, but marajuana has no known toxicity. Its not possible to OD on it. Never mind the fact that legal drugs kill orders of magnitudes more people every year than illegal ones.
War on Drugs = new McCarthyism
Just as irrational, just as unjust, & just as politically devisive.
--
MT
My girlfriend and I were talking about the DARE programs that we were put through in middle school. She pointed something out that I found quite interesting: DARE made her quite comfortable with drugs, even curious about some of the more interesting ones. (ie, LSD.) Neither of have used drugs (we're straight edge, I guess), but I must admit that I'm in agreement with her -- I know just what I'd use, what to expect, and that I'd probably use them again. All thanks to DARE!
Waldo
On point 1c I think pure medical data seems to back it up fully. A stroke is where large portions of the brain die and cease to function. It's like scortched earth for the brain and many extremely intelligent people can be totally incapicated by them and almost never get any functioning back. If the brain were able to replace cells as you suggest then why don't stroke victims get they life back? Another point would be dementa and Alteizmers which are basically the result of mass dieing of cells over time. Why don't old people have the same level of intelligence and cognition as the general younger population of age -50 years? On 2 I think DARE is brought out of a desire to depart with the kind of ideas imparted by Ralph Parlette and his "School of Hard-Knocks" (take a look at project gutenberg for a reference). Most people don't want their children to be ruined for life and have an addiction problem because someone didn't tell them the experiences of other people who failed.
Respond to s
Here is a link to some studies and articles on DARE programs; the evidence is pretty overwhelming that the programs are ineffective, and that DARE has used political pressure to squash legitimate criticism. DARE even funded a study in 1997 that concluded DARE was ineffective; instead of examining the conclusions, DARE chose to harass and attack the credibility of the researchers (whom they hired in the first place).
Ways I've heard of (nah, I'd never do this, especially number three!) to deface "Just Say No!" signs include:
1. If you've got room, make it "Just Say NoRML!" (NORML being the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws).
2. If less room/time, try for "Just Say KNoW!" -- adding the "K" and "W" which drug-warriors find refreshingly-annoying.
3. (My personal favorite, and there's probably some sort of HTML-god way I could do this, but I don't even feel like trying.) This takes the least space/time, and involves merely quickly adding a tiny, subscript "2" below the "N" in "NO," thus revealing the odd admonition to "Just Say Nitrous-Oxide!" but only to those of us who are chemically-initiated, and we generally tend to snicker and leave it there. Nitrous Oxide, or "laughing gas," is one of the most powerful (legal) mind-altering substances available, but few drug-warriors seem to know its chemical symbol.
JMR
Note: While "just saying nitrous" may keep one out of trouble with law-enforcement authorities better than experimentation with other substances such as cannabis, nitrous oxide has a number of dangerous properties which limit its safety and therefore its usefulness as a recreational drug. (Weed's safer, IOW.) The short-duration of nitrous IS a convenient feature, and brings to mind features one would ask for in an "ideal" recreational drug (unless that's Viagra!).
Try e-gold - (contact me). I'm NOT e-
...it targets kids who are 10 and under. It should be moved up at least three years into middle schools rather than keep it with kids who are still playing with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Show me the studies, not just "soundbites". Then we'll talk.
Graham
Graham
Linux - Fast Pane Relief
Yes, I know it's not physically addictive.
But what I've learned in my 31 years is this: the pains that you suffer as a child want to hide. When your parents abused you (and they invariably did; nobody can have all their needs taken care of, but some of us got smacked more than others), you had a choice: integrate the experience with your world view, or repress it.
To integrate would be a death sentence -- it would be admitting that your parents didn't love you, which would lead to understanding that they won't provide for you, you won't have food, clothes, a roof over your head -- basically, the child would die, knowing it wouldn't be taken care of. So repression was a survival instinct.
Now, what does all this have to do with drugs?
I used pot to help me forget. To help me remove the pain of the past, so I could wallow in false happiness. And, it is false -- my problems weren't any closer to being solved the next morning.
I'll smoke again; I'm sure of it. But not for a while -- a year or two, perhaps more. It's not evil -- it's just a tool, and tools can be used for good or bad. (Ban guns -- why not ban knives? Or screwdrivers? But that's another subject.)
Social use and solitary use are two different things; if you find yourself in the latter group, talk to someone about it.
I hope my experience can help other kids understand the reasons they use. I'm in therapy and highly recommend it for adults who were abused as children.
As far as harder drugs, I've tried 'em, never got hooked -- I was lucky. Try to avoid the more expensive drugs, which have physical addiction potential -- crack, cocaine, heroin, alcohol, tobacco.
The best to start with is pot. Mushrooms are nice, but I prefer acid. And don't overdo that -- it could lead to insanity.
But in moderation, you should be free to experience the world at your discretion. It's your body.
--
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
I think this view is typical of most people who went through the DARE brainwashing...er..um...education, and I can't disagree at all. The way to educate youngsters is not to lie to them, because that builds resentment. I know it did in me. I mean even if the lies had been more subtle it may have worked better, but apparently most government types believe the ends justify the means...
I rember being a drug council member in the dare program in my elmentry school at age 10 {Dream Seaqence} Later in Junior Highschool and Highschool i ended smoking 1 ounce of pot a day and doing most of the other drugs at one time or another. I also picked up the wonderful habbit of smoking. I no longer do narcotics howerver i do smoke and i belive the programs are ineffecive because it stigmatises drug use as a counter culture. The grouping with this counter culture also let them find a common ground. By saying "Say no to Drugs" and "Drug are bad" you equate it to "Speeding is bad" and "Too much sugar causes tooth decay" So when my little sister goes out every weekend to do E i laugh because IMHO it's just a phase -PaCk [Efnet Sux -Dianora]
Could someone please explain why this is news for nerds or stuff that matters?
Next we'll read here about how the neighbour's cat is trapped atop some tree, or some other (similar) crap just like in most American TV news broadcasts.
Ehttp://eugeneciurana.com | http://ciurana.eu
When I was in elementary school our DARE officer
was arrested for robbing abank wearing a gorilla
mask. He got 20 some years. The school brought in
all sorts of therapists that made everyone cry.
It's been years now, and I've done all sorts of
drugs. Did some last night actually. LSD is my
favorite. So now DARE doesn't work.
Argh... subject line didn't fit. You can fill in the "s".
Excuse me? Who are you (or the government, or anybody else, for that matter) to tell me what I should and should not be putting into my body?
I'll have you know that out of all the drugs, both legal and illegal, nicotine is the most addictive. People have problems with alcohol more than any other drug. Alcoholics are harder to treat than any other drug addict. Alcohol and nicotine cause more deaths per year than all illegal drugs combined.
I have been using drugs for five years. Out of all the drugs that I have used (18 different ones, many of them obscure, so I won't mention them here), the only one that I have had a problem with is alcohol. Luckily, I managed to quit drinking before it caused me irreparable harm. However, it was my perogative, and my responsibility in the issue.
Nowadays I use marijuana and nitrous oxide on a regular basis with no adverse effects. In fact, when used properly, these are two of the safest drugs you can do. These drugs bring me incredible benefit, both mentally and spiritually.
When you are ready to give up your caffeine (which is a drug, and a fairly addictive one at that), then feel free to tell me what I should and shouldn't put in my body. As far as I'm concerned, a caffeine addict is a drug addict; an individual who has let drugs take control of their lives. Have you ever seen a caffeine addict who was unable to have a cup of coffee? Well, I'm dating a caffeine addict now, and let me tell you that it isn't pretty.
Just because the majority is too lethargic and needs caffeine to stimulate themselves into productivity and the media glorifies the negative effects of other drugs, then people like me, who are high strung in nature, have the drugs that would be beneficial to us illegalized, while the caffeine / ephedrine addicts are free to use to their hearts' content.
Cocaine has been known to cause health problems and addictions in susceptible individuals. Marijuana does not. I'm sorry, but if your friends and family members had their lives "ruined" by marijuana, well then marijuana was probably indicative of a deeper problem (e.g. depression, anxiety, etc...) that ruined their lives.
Just say know to drugs. There is a wealth of information out there. Know how to use responsibly. People have been using drugs for thousands of years with great benefits.
If you choose to lead a sober life, I don't criticize you. That's the choice that you feel is right for you. But your post implies that drug users are "losers", which just shows that you are narrow minded. If you and your family and friends are unable to enjoy the wonderful things drugs have to offer, that's fine, but respect that some of us can.
For your info, I have a straight A+ average in my 3rd year of computer science. I have an IQ of 160. I am a well rounded individual who realizes that exercise, eating well, and moderation in all things are the keys to good health.
Much as the swastika was a great success as propoganda for the Nazis.
The message is out there and the adults and senior citizens have been snowed into believing that there is a drug problem, and yes, we are fixing it. In the meantime, a permanent underclass of liberal-thinking people who can not vote because they have a felony conviction for drug possession or abuse is being created, and those directly targeted by the D.A.R.E. program often can not vote simply because they are not old enough- and won't be able to vote until they've been subjected to years of D.A.R.E. propoganda.
So yes, I would say that what we have may not be a final solution, but it certainly has been effective.
Ferlman
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
WHAT is this doing on Slashdot?!
Connah
Connah
"Your mouse has moved. Windows NT must be restarted for this change to take effect."
DARE didn't work for me, but it isn't a failure.
I can remember elementary school, sitting in the school bus agreeing with my friends that we would never smoke cigarettes, and especially never do 'harder' drugs; because that's what DARE told us to think. Look at us now. Some of us still don't do cigarettes, but as we got older we found out the real consequences from drugs, the positive and the negative, and started taking the ones we wanted to.
The problem I see with DARE is it didn't really give us useful, truthful information about the drugs it tried to keep us away from. This is understandable too; when you are seven years old you don't care about the chemical effects of drugs. In fact all DARE could do was try and mold our minds into thinking that drugs are bad. They told us drugs would destroy our lives. They told us drugs would destroy our bodies.
As a teenager rules were made to be broken, and because I didn't really know anything useful about drugs I went out and tried them.
I don't think, however, that DARE is a failure considering their circumstances. Because most drugs cannot be tested in studies, they don't get the scientific attention they deserve. Even if DARE had all the information about the physical and social effects of drugs, I don't think you can really get that across to a seven year old. DARE should be implemented at a higher age. For my area, and this probably isn't consistent across the board, drug use began in middle school, about twelve years old. Oddly enough, that's the same time DARE fades away. We had zero DARE programs in high school.
As we get older, give us the truth and let us decide. If you decide for us, we will do the opposite. It's the teenage way.
dare is a complete joke. they spread their message through misinformation and lies. they want the kids to come out of the class as War On Drugs(tm) automatons, Just Saying No(tm).
if you're going to tell kids how bad drugs are, at least have the integrity to tell the whole story. at least have the balls to distinguish drug use from drug abuse. let them know that experimentation with e.g. marijuana is not uncommon, and you shouldn't consider every drug user a pathetic waste of flesh to be pitied.
if they really want to show kids how bad drugs can be, show some photos of people who got crispy-fried when their methlab blew up. show pictures of people going through such terrible herion withdrawl that they would rather die than live without a fix. show cops trying to restrain someone freaking out on pcp. don't lie.
for what it's worth, dare didn't do anything for me other than waste an hour of my time every week, when i could have been out back getting stoned.
--
DARE has not worked, and most of the studies that show it did work were later found to be inaccurat and supported DARE only through the biased information the researchers used.
I'll point you to the well recognized researcher in the field of Criminal Justice, Dr. Ed Day, who is currently an instructor at Penn State in the Department of Crime Law and Justice. Several studies he and other collegues have done have shown that DARE is an ineffective program.
But before I rant and get punished too harshly...
If I could only live my life with my threshold at 4...
The t-shirts are incredibly ugly.
I think the proof of DARE's ineffectiveness lies in Slashdot's Moderaters. I DARE them to stop taking crack. :)
:-P
also..my post works whether it is moderated down or up, so there.
The anti-salmon
Dare is very effective. When I lived in Florida, in 5th grade every Thursday we had a police officer come in and talk to us about drugs etc. He never really said how we'd turn out, he just kind of told us the facts about it, and well, I don't plan on ever doing drugs, nor would I ever consider drinking. I guess the effectiveness really depends on what kind of person you are.
-Ranma
In my community (Gig Harbor, Washington) drug use has greatly diminished... last year binge drinking and drug use was frequent, but now its almost gone. I'm not sure if its DARE or just the way 'shit happens', but something is doing a pretty good job.
In my personal experience with the dare program, it is started way to early. As a fourth grader, no one cares about drugs or even has access to drugs. So the big scare campaign that the dare officers give is detrimental. By the time the kids get to junior high (or high school) and have their first interactions with illegal drugs, they see that their friends are using them and not dropping dead instantly. Who do they belive now, the scarey DARE officer who 'lied' to them, or their friends who they see useing the drugs without ill effects? If the DARE program was implemented in junior high instead of elementary school, and told the truths about drugs instead of scare stories, it could be much more effective with curving the drug use in teens.
Not to be offtopic of the post, but this one personal experience of DARE really gets to me. The DARE program scares the kids into beleiving that all drugs are bad and will kill you and hurt you, but then a few years latter Marijuana is legalized in my state (CA) for medicinal use! What are the kids supposed to think, Frist Marijuana is a huge evil and perscription drugs are alright, but then all of a sudden Marijuana is a perscription drug that helps people with terminal illnesses such as cancer (very debatable!). How could a drug that was thought to be so harmfull all of a sudden be found to be so helpful?(again debatable) Does this mean that other drugs like heroin, pcp, and meth actually have benificial qualities that we just don't know about yet? I wouldn't be supprised if these questions are running through the heads of current DARE participants.
Just some personal experiences, bring on the flames.
I lost my
--
--
We have fought the AC's, and they have won.
The president of the SADD chapter at my high school got drunk one weekend at a party her junior year back in 1993. She drove her parent's car (complete with a red ribbon tied to the antenna and a DARE bumper sticker) into a ditch. She totalled the car, injured herself, and injured two of her friends. Thank goodness no one was seriously hurt or killed. She remained president of SADD until her senior year.
DARE and SADD work great.
Speak truth to power.
Likewise, I would assume the percentage of crack or heroin users that have used pot as well is higher than the percentage of non-crack and non-heroin users. Now, I'm not saying pot unquestionably leads to harder drugs, but I don't think you want to give the youth the impression that some drugs (which might be used as stepping-stones to harder drugs) are ok.
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
What, don't they teach you kids how to search for things on the net? Oh, wait a sec, you are probably a BESS school.
I turned up a couple of good starting points. It is easy to find a lot of pro-DARE stuff published by the dare folk. Here is a link to some information from PBS's Front lin e. I also came across this article in the Daily Hampshire Gazette. The latter talks about negative studies from the Dept of Justice, the GAO, and the Department of Ed -- the might be worth tracking down. Hope this helps.
Marijuana is excellent and has no negative effects.
Surely, you're joking. While marijuana is not nearly as bad a say, heroin, or crack, it is definitely not good for you. The massive "tar" content of your average joint makes it at least as bad a a pack of filtered cigarettes. And smoking pot on a regular basis definitely decreases IQ and increases paranoia and depression.
Definitely, pot does not kill in the same sense as heroin and such, but no negative effects? Come on, get real.
The real problem as I see it, is that drug abuse and alchoholism are diseases that people have predispositions to. Combined with emotional and/or social problems (such as having an abusive parent) the predisposition may or may not take over your life.
Kids will always use drugs... what people need to be able to do is recognize who has a problem using them and who doesn't, as well as who will potentially have a problem.
--
--
We have fought the AC's, and they have won.
From what I have heard, DARE is completely ineffective. The percentages of people who have tried drugs has escalated since DARE hit the education system.
I'm Canadian, so I've never gone through DARE (although we had something similar up here), but from what I've heard, DARE delivers outright lies about drug use. The problem with scare tactics is that one day, many people begin to think for themselves, and they decide that maybe all the crap that DARE and the media talk about isn't true. They play around with marijuana, realize that it isn't the demon possessed weed that people try to make it out to be.
Now the problem is that these people are uniformed. Since marijuana was made to look so evil, they figure hell, since marijuana wasn't so bad, then cocaine probably isn't that bad either. So some of them will go on to try more dangerous drugs like cocaine and heroin, which can cause health problems, addiction, and overdose.
All because they were given misinformation. Instead, programs like DARE should be teaching children the real dangers of doing drugs, and, if children choose to use drugs, how to use them in a responsible fashion.
Here is an example of the sheer stupidity of drug resistance programs. When I was in grade 6, they decided to bring some recovered addicts in to talk to us. Well, lo and behold, what could they produce? A valium addict. A prescription medication addict. No, not a *gasp* marijuana addict, but a valium addict. And this valium addict was full of shit (you don't go live your life on the streets from a prescription valium addiction) and even a grade six class could tell this.
By the way, some of the most charming, intelligent people I know are hardcore drug users. And they live very fulfilling, productive lives.
Once someone has gone as far as oral sex, vaginal sex ain't too far away.
You are completely correct. This is why we must recommend nasal sex as the only safe alternative.
"I'm gonna smoke, smoke, smoke my lungs out."
Don't tread on me!
-- "Perceptions create reality. By changing your perceptions you change your reality."
Most of the people in High School I knew who wore
D.A.R.E shirts were stoners if that says anything.
"as plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee" - Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz. (One man's humorous is another mans flamebait)
I graduated from school before the DARE farce came along (whatever happened to learning something useful in school... seems like students spend alot of time just learning about violence, pregnancy and drugs there these days). However, my mother was on the schoolboard at my old high school for eight years and said there was no evidence that it had been effective (and may have even encouraged use). It's a small community and most people never leave town after graduation, so you can watch them from high school onward (or downward) and she says it's a running joke in the community to see the students who won the cute little DARE awards go on to be busted for possession not long later.
Look up the following (if you need more just reply and I will give you a ton): Frontline:busted..how effective is D.A.R.E
War on Drugs Clock
Interesting Fact Sheet from canadian sources That should get you started on how and why D.A.R.E. does not work. The US prohibition against drugs in an incredible failure. In the first 12 years of the War on Drugs (begining with Reagan's presidency) the US Gov. spent a record 3 Trillion dollars. If you worked out the numbers that is about $12,000 for every man, woman and child in the US. I don't know about you but my feeling is that this is an incredible waste of money. I could think of agencies like NASA who I would rather see me $1,000 a year spent on rather than the bullshit we call a war on drugs. I can't find an exact figure for the model but last year the 6th largest growth industry in the US was Prisons according to a Frontline report I saw not too long ago. The War on Drugs as it is being waged is the most blatant racist violation of US citizens rights. The statistic of 3 out of 4 black males (between ages 17-34)in inner cities being incarcerated at one point or another for a drug offense should point that out. The distribution of drug use is not vastly different between any particular ethnic, racial or financial demographic yet we relentlessly persecute blacks for it. This is an utter disgrace. Caucasians do drugs too. I don't see 3 out of 4 of us in jail for it.If this were really a WAR then we would handle it completely different but we won't. It is always election fodder and makes the righteous candidates look foolish for saying truthfully that the war is dumb. Jocelyn Elders was ridiculed out of her position as Surgeon General for saying that the drug problem is a health problem not a criminal problem. The CIA was busted selling and marketing cocaine in 'Contragate' to help fund subversive actions during the Iran/Iraq war. The list goes on there I could continue to add to ad infinitum.People for the most part are opposed to legalization/decriminalization for all the wrong reasons based upon the disinformation you are presented with in the educational system. Could we please stop brainwashing the next generation and teach them the facts? How many of us were forced to watch Reefer Madness? How much of the 'facts' presented therein is totally bullshit? Will crime go UP if decriminaliztion occurs? No because a) you will kill the black market that feeds off of it b) drugs will be much cheaper c)the quality will be better d)street gangs who finance themselves on drug sales will be out of business e)we would stop letting violent offenders out of jail to house mandatory sentencing guidlined drug offenders and the rediculous 3 time offender laws that require people to be jailed the rest of thier lives for the sale or use f)the relentless seizure of properites would end. Drug use for the most part is a victimless crime.We have to stop this madness and soon. Cops needlessly are being killed. FBI agents bodies are turning up in graves in Mexico. Our Presidential candidates have used drugs: Gore and Bush links. I am totally for decriminalization and when I say that I mean clean across the board, not just pot or coke I mean EVERYTHING. What a person does in thier own home on thier own time is thier business. You do what you want. I care not. If you do drugs and get behind the wheel of a car we take away you liscense forever(something I totally advocate for DUI offenders to) end of story. The basic tenet of freedom is the right to be left alone and not be unduly harrassed. Why isn't it that way now?Please, Uncle Sam, stop blowing my hard earned tax dollars on the bullshit and stop trying to brainwash our children.
Prospecting Stinks. Stop Wasting Time on Cold Calling.
One of the most important things that DARE does is give kids some tools to resist the peer pressure to use drugs. It's not going to stop an abuser, nor will it scare anyone straight, but there are kids on the edge who can be helped by DARE and programs like it.
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
No.
S-T-U-D-I-E-S, not propaganda. You waste my time. The first two links didn't work, and the last one was garbage. Peddle your snake oil elsewhere.
Graham
Graham
Linux - Fast Pane Relief
Really simple. Take a bunch of druggies off the streets and instead of immediately arresting them or whatnot take them along with the dare officers in hand cuffs and leg irons to a school and show them a real life example of a drug user looks/smells/acts/behaves like and that just might work a little better.
Respond to s
Alcohol. Tobacco is the second gateway drug.
Think about it. Look around yourself, pay attention to who became druggies and who didn't. Chances are they were drinking or smoking at an early age.
Instead, we waste time targetting marijuana and demonizing it, spending more than 40 percent of our budgets (federal, state, county, municipal averaged) on arresting mostly harmless occassional marijuana and ecstasy users who never really cause problems, and thinking this will actually have an effect.
It won't.
Look, some members of my family made fortunes during prohibition. Drugs are drugs, heroin is stupid, cocaine/crack is also stupid, and meth is just plain dumb, but you can't stop people by lame programs that don't deal with the real gateway drugs, in a world where most underage teenagers have had a drink in the past month.
So, get real, take half the money we spend on crac king down on the drug supply and spend it on realistic prevention programs, and triage the enforcement process so we don't lock up soft drug users with hard time criminals and perpetuate the problem.
Will in Seattle
My experience with DARE was pretty much the same. "Hmm.Dope isn't so bad, what else did they exaggerate?"
So I did a lot of drugs for a bit. Then I stopped. To this day I think that the D.A.R.E. program really enforces the "Gateway Drug" mindset. Without D.A.R.E. though, I might not have tried some of the great drugs that I did!
And then you realize that you have a crappier life than when you were on the drug which gives rise to *wanting* the drug. This is what creates simple psychological addiction.
Respond to s
Then use drugs and get nabbed by the police and get to see the world of jail for a while. No more cares, worries, interesting people to meet, free meals, room, borad, etc. And hey more time for that zen experience.
Respond to s
DARE = Drugs Are Really Expensive
This has prevented a good number of people from doing drugs (atleast as regularly as they would like)
Seriously though, any program that has a "just say no" attitude will fail... I am really impressed with the programs where they give out free condoms at school or where they let junkies turn in used needles for new ones(to prevent aids).. These programs accept that there is a problem and that people are not going to stop becuase you say "just say no".. so instead they take a more realistic approach and try to minimize the damage done... Since they are more realistic, they don't preach as much and generally get better acceptance by the people they're trying to help...
11oh8
That's what I did and you can too it's quite intuitive
Respond to s
I have done a considerable amount of research on the brain damage topic so I will try to respond in an intelligent way.
Yes, some drugs do cause some brain imparment including alchool, pot, ecstasy ketamine and others. The question at hand is how much imparment. Various studies have also shown brain imparment from head butting soccer balls but I don't think we need a DARE program for soccer abuse.
Many studies, including ones founded by the WHO(World Health organization not Pete Townshed's band), have found less long term mental damage from smoking pot than imbibing alchool. In fact the long term damage from being an alcholic is actually fairly severe. Yet it is possible to occasionally have a drink and suffer no noticeable deliterious effects in ones life be a productive member of society and in fact be more happy overall. It would therefore seem alchol use is often a good thing. Also given the research into the harmful effects infrequent pot use seems like a good thing too.
Of course using any drug carries with it the possibilty of physical or psychological addiction. Alchool is in fact physically addictive while marijuanna is not. This doesn't mean one can't overuse the drug but does lend further credence that it should not be included in the DARE propaganda.
Other drugs can be quite damaging to the brain. For instance ecstasy is very hard on the serotonin system and use has been shown to correlate with imparment. On the other hand long term use of opiates (opium heroin etc...) has very little (if any) brain imparment although they are quite addictive. Drugs like LSD have not been conclusively shown to carry any cognitive imparment with them (several studies suggest that they have one imparment over another but at the same time these studies all disagree and oten work in a psuedo-uncontrolled enviornment which allows other drugs to affect the results) and while depresion and anxiety are also claimed as side effects I am unaware of any controlled study to this effect.
But now this is a quite differnt picture of drugs than painted in DARE. Some drugs can be quite hard on the brain (ecstasy and to a lesser extent alchol depending on the amount) while other "bad drugs" are sometimes not to bad on the brain or at least less harmful than our legal drug alchol. This then is why DARE is propaganda.
WHY IS THIS BAD?
Well because if we lie to children when we are telling them drugs are bad they are likely to take everything we tell them on the subject to be false. Once children find out that pot is not the demon weed and it isn't that bad for you they may stop believing ecstasy is that harmful or heroin is that addictive. Without any authoratative unbiased knowledge know they have to guess as what drugs are worth it and which are not.
In regards to prison most marijuanna users don't go to prison. The figure is now something like 55% or high school seniors have tried pot. Most of them aren't going to prison...they are growing up to be bankers and lawyers and politicians.
That 55% figure is a good response to the success of DARE. Another little factoid for you is that the government plays fast and loose with its figures sometimes switching the age of those they polled to make it look like their program has been more succesfull (Barry McCaffery just did this).
Just a note on your final point doing something because everyone else is doing it is not only what intelligent people do it is what everyone does. We wear clothes, don't go to work dressed in giant ape suits, eat with silverware etc..etc.. all because others are doing it. This sort of thing is only viewed as bad when in fact everyone else isn't doing it and you are merely following a small subset.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
How can DARE possibly be effective these days? If you have watched any TV in the last year you will have seen advertising for various drug companies. Got a headache? We got a pill for that. Bladder control problem? Pill for that too. Problem socializing? No problem, here's a pill. Problem sleeping? Have a pill. Etcetera etcetera etcetera...
Now you have all this advertising that essentially says "Feel bad? Here, take a pill". It would not surprise me that when kids see all this they may say. I feel bad, think I'll take something for it.
Makes no difference to me that the advertised stuff is government approved. All drugs are essentially bad (ever listened to the side effects of the advertised drugs?). Medically some have good uses but I find advertising for drugs to be reprehensible. If you have a problem go to the doctor. Work with that doctor too. Do not just blindly take that prescription to be filled without asking questions first.
-- Spammers: My E-mail server is in California. Consider yourself warned.
That's the best one I ever saw. It was on a car in Santa Cruz, Ca... so it was pretty much preaching to the converted.
-- 'intellectual property' is oxymoronic
That is completely and utterly wrong, the main reason that you get lung cancer from tobacco is not because its smoke, but because of what's in the smoke. There are literally hundreds of carcinogens in tobacco smoke, compared to not a single one in marijuana smoke. The only thing left that might even remotely be considered a factor in getting lung cancer is the fact that you have hot smoke in your lungs. This is something that your lungs can get over easily as long as you aren't smoking like every day.
This is not surprising at all. I bet you will find similar effects from gambling, shoplifting and other "bad" activities. Yet we would not claim that shop lifting is a nuerotoxin. What you in fact have is a correlation not a causation.
To rebute your claims I suggest you look at the two followign studies.
Goode, E "Drug Use and Grades in College," Nature 234: 225-27
Kupfer, DJ et al "A Comment on the Amotivational Syndrome in Marihuana Smokers," American Journal of Psychiatry 130:1219-22
Both of which find that college smokers don't do worse than non-smokers (the first actually finds them doing better).
In regards to high school students I suggest that in general choice to do un-approved activities like drug use often correlate with feelings of disenfrachisment and possibly depression. With these feelings being the cause of both the drug use and the poorer performance.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The Wisconsin Supreme Court held that schools can search lockers only if Students had, before being issued lockers, been notified in writing that they were subject to search, and initialed a copy of the notice.
Ben Masel: 51,282 votes for US Senate in the Wisconsin Democratic Primary
So, you think 95% of your peers will be using some form of illegal substance? The Harvard study about perceptions of what constitutes "normal" show that that missconceptions of this kind are what leads to the kinds of behavior you are talking about. If you belive that, it will become 100% true to the one person who's opinions you should really care about.
There is nothing normal or casual about illegal drugs. You don't know what's there, even if you think you know what it will do to you.
Wake up! You don't need that kind of crap to have a good time. You can run around naked without having consumed a buch of shit someone wants to sell you. I have! and I've got pictures on campus and at the State Capitol to prove it. I did it stone cold sober with a couple of friends, one of which became my wife. Passed out = lost opertunity. Recreationally hanging out with your buds watching Batman on TV every afternoon will waste your youth. Don't be a sucker for the liquor industry or the Global Drug Suppliers. The time of your life will come because you are young, energetic and learning with your friends.
Poster enjoys alcohol, but has never gotten a DWI because he does not drink and drive (duh!). Sleep in your car! Plan your evenings. Walk! Don't drink so damn much. Never, ever waste time with illegal drugs. New Orleans is a good place to grow up, and yes I had a great time growing up. In fact, I'm still having a great time.
Go places, do things, and be sweet!
It didn't help me in the sense that it kept me away from drugs, if that is the question, but it did help me realize the ridiculousness of our government and society's "justifications" for their war on drugs. Even back when DARE was being forced down my throat in 6th grade, a time when I had not even tried drugs yet, more or less heard of most of them, It infuriated me that they felt they had the right to tell me what I was allowed to do with my body, something that didn't affect them in any way, yet they still felt the need to force their beliefs upon me just like every other traditional load of bullshit that has been barraged upon me from day 1.
Our governments insistance on interfering with every single personal issue in our lives has always pissed me off, and I'm not going to take their bullshit anymore. Instead of playing the guilty part and letting the government continue to oppress people for things that they want to do to themselves, people need to take a stand and fight back against this ridiculous puritan system.
Anyway, I guess I'll turn off my rant mode now, but I believe that this is something that really needs to be changed, and soon.
...the DARE was to see how much you could take in without losing your lunch. Those of you who have seen "Dazed and Confused" know what I'm talking about.
With all that tar and ash you could resurface a small road.
Respond to s
1c is not a myth. I am not quite up with what functions your new brains cells may take up (their was some question about whether any type of cell in the brain may be replaced) and I do know that often the damage caused by repeted drug use may get partially better with time. However various studies do clearly show imparment from say ecstasy and serious damage from PCP. I believe in the later case it can be directly linked to cell death.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
I found that DARE was, as a program, an utter failure.
Now I am not against the idea of "Drug Abuse Education" the idea. Just the program was ill fated.
If they focused on teaching the side effects of various drugs and their effects that it'll have on your life it'd be one thing. A guy earlier said that pot had no downsides--I disagree pot will make you stupid and unmotivated when you use it (a decided disadvantage, I would say). So actually showing what cocaine will do to you vs. pot, etc.
They also spent a lot of time (wasted) on teaching about self esteem and what it is. That was a big waste of time.
The problem with DARE is that it encouraged as much as discouraged drug experimentation. It is the standard Pandora's box. They really pique people's curiosity with DARE. And because it is rebellious kids do that stuff. Notice how kids tend to experiment with drugs during their 'rebelious' stage? It is a human nature issue.
But the fact of the matter is, if America is still waging the war on drugs, DARE will be destined to fail. I actually think that DARE may become more successful if drugs are legalized--naturally it would no longer be the police and what-not or called DARE. But an actual drug education system wouldn't be a bad idea.
IMHO the only reason why DARE has been around for 10 or so years now is because it is fashionable for businesses to sponsor DARE related stuff. I.e. businesses and prominent community leaders get press and what not for supporting DARE (via painting one of their fleet vehicles with DARE logos, having a DARE pizza party for the local kids, speaking at a DARE graduation ceremony, etc.). The public I don't even think CARES if DARE works--but it's good publicity so they support it.
This is a problem I imagine we'll be dealing with until some of the older generations are no longer in power and we have more Libertarians in government. Hopefully it will become socially acceptable to support ending the war on drugs THEN it will start to swing the other way.
-k
DARE has many fundamental problems with it which are inextricably linked with the moronic attitude of the drug war.
..."Here Kids- here's a free voucher for a Big Mac and Coke since you've sat here listening to us preach for the past hour."... Yeah, great policy (*sarcasm intended*)
The first is that "drugs" is ill-defined and is equated with the irrational schedule policies of the DEA/FDA. Everything you ingest is a drug. Every lipid, amino acid, carbohydrate, tryptamine, amphetamine, etc. etc. all have effects on your body and your brain- whether it be LSD or L-Tyrosine. To promote a healthy attitude in the populace, one needs to show the reality of cause and effect of everything you ingest. It is hypocritical of schools to be having anti-marijuana campaigns through DARE when such things are funded by PepsiCola or Mcdonalds- just as if not more deleterious to one's body as some "hard" drugs. Don't beleive me? Check out the increasing rates of hypoglycemia and diabetes among the youth generation, and compare that with the rates of, say, methamphetamine addiction (you'll find the former is much higher). The rational approach is a holistic approach- advocating the ability to regain bio and mental homeostasis even after extreme conditions (stress, drugs, lack of exercise)- which leaves the decision in the hands of well-informed youth, and not in horribly misinformed disempowered generation.
That said, there are positive effects to many illicit substances- enhancements in creativity, insight in self, stress relief, etc. Just like there are positive effects to eating a fatty and heavy meal, or taking medication to treat a disease. Ideally, one can avoid doing all of the above. Practically, its not going to happen- and teaching strategies for one to effectively using a state of homeostasis (sobriety) to get through life is critical, and is severly lacking in our bass-ackwards society.
The second problem is not only is a bad philosophy being taught, but misinformation is freewheelingly handed out, which not only destroys the credibility of the program, but also endangers the lives of many youth who may not have access to reliable information when drugs come their way. Yes, methamphetamine and heroin are not good- Ive had many a friends have their lives disrupted by it. On the same token, marijuana and and LSD dont kill- Ive taken them and am probably much more of a productive member of society than most, regardless. The harm prevention comes down to situations like: "When I am in a club scene, how much water should I drink, and what activity level should I have to prevent injury?" or "What dosages can cocaine have addictive effects?". Thanks to not having full factual disclosure, DARE has resulted not in the decline of drugs, but rather, the irresponsible use of drugs. In fact, I would go so far to say that the advent of the internet and sites like hyperreal, erowid and groups like rec.drugs have saved tens of thousands of lives in drug situations thanks to factual accounts.
The third problem, is by introducing police (and other legal strongarm elements in to the situation), DARE has created an antagonistic relationship with legal system and the youth right off. Youth immediately become part of a criminal class- a class which is suspect of being "bad" under any circumstances. At best, As everyone in the 10-25 age group knows, this mentality has blossomed into the "crucify the different" mentality with all the anti-geek, anti-punk, etc. crusades occuring after Columbine regardless of the productivity or general goodness of the kids involved (its a total lack of philosophy, thinking, and humanity on the part of the administrations). At worst, kids who may have bad lives and chemical dependency problems are physically abused, tortured, and shipped off to the gulag, where they descend further and further into complete alienation from the positive aspects of society. The police involvement in the DARE program in it's current use makes police into nothing more than at best a gestapo, and at worst into just another really violent gang of thugs, given license to brutality by society. What happened to "officer friendly"? If you are going to have legeal intervention, it should be for the positive, and not by blindly treating all kids who use drugs, or happen to associate with a particular group as cockroaches- needing to be wiped out from society.
All of what I say is coming from growing up in the American Public School system in the time of the drug war, and having been in all sorts of different social roles (as math/computer whiz kid, a disgruntled political student, an illicit substance user, teacher's pet, etc. etc.). My suggestion for DARE managers, and people who want to stop seeing substance abuse is to Stop the Madness- stop buying the bullshit about crime and drugs. Stop thinking of drugs as an evil force. Stop thinking of black and white. Realize that substance ingestment is a lifestyle and health issue- a holistic issue that cannot and should not be treated as something that is an ethical or moral issue, any more than the decision to be a couch potato or having promiscous sex. It is an issue that cannot be improved without realizing that drug use and drug abuse is inevitable within a population, and what needs to be aimed for is harm reduction through rational, factual information!
Of course, I'm probably typing all of this for naught, since the blindness of the legislation and the brutality of the uneducated folks working in the educationa and police systems right now, refuse to even recognize the existence of the content of what I am saying, much less consider a different approach.
No drug dealing is nowhere NEAR attempted murder. Let me remind you of the central differnce between posioning someone without their knowledge and selling them rat posion which they may or may not choose to use on themselves. The first is murder the second is being a good hardware store. Moreover seeling drugs is surely not attempted murder because they are not meant to kill.
McDonalds is like posion which will eventually kill you but yet I view it as my right to eat mcdonalds without the government coming down on me. Every person's utility curve is differnt and it should be my choice not the governments how highly I wish to value my bodily health
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Ohh yah and if they sent out a GM virus to deystroy pot I believe the government would piss off a whole lot of people. Not just those who might use pot but also everyone who has ever seen a scare story about mutated viruses
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Let me clarify this for you, perhaps you haven't been in the public education system for a while. GRADES ARE NOT AN INDICATION OF INTELLIGENCE. I don't think anyone on this board will disagree.
Most truly intelligent people I know, didn't do very well at all in school, myself included. Of course, these same people, have a thirst for knowledge, and do GO to school everyday, and go to class, they just don't waste thier time on the bullshit homework, which makes up the vast majority of the grade. I know that in my case, I was a frequent user, went to school everyday, had fun, didn't do homework, took all the tests, and guess what? Did very well on the tests, aced most of them. But still ran about a D+ average. What does that tell you?
Schools are better equiped than parents to teach children about sex and drugs and they should.
All illegal drugs are bad. They serve no real purpose and cause great harm.
Morality is not about specific levels of benifit. Morality is about how you treat your neighbors and yourself. Be sweet!
Technically what he said was true. He was defining Abuse as the point of use where serious negatives start to accrue to you. This of course qould imply that their is a level of pot (or whatever drug) use which is not in fact abuse and therefore does not need to be stoped. I don't know if this is what he meant.
Having said this your point is well made. The primary problem with DARE is that through bad science/ancedots it tries to convince you all drug use is terribly bad therefore once you realize this isn't quite true the rest of the data they gave you is doubted
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
I praise the Government for endorsing DARE.
/nutt
Drugs
Are
Really
Excellent
They're leading the war on the war on drugs.
So technically, by that standard, if I use marijuana on the weekends, at home, with friends, while drinking beers. Keep in mind I'm not "abusing"..That would be ok with DARE? I would like to believe that, but it simply is not true.
There are very few Jewish drunks, even Russians. Their kids start with wine very early, graduate to vodka in high school, but almost never drink to excess. The culture encourages other behavior.
DARE is just another variety of prohibitionist and cultural engineering thinking. Cultures are too complex to engineer.
Lew
"The Constitution, the WHOLE Constitution, and nothing but the CONSTITUTION."
is this news for nerds, stuff that matters? is it related to the election? is it related to linux? lego?
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Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
[o]_O
Drug Abuse Resistance Education
Drug use is an Education
I seem to remember reading one study that indicated that having a DARE program in certain school districts actually increased the chances that the students would use drugs. It seems that the program was piquing the childrens' interest in drugs, and they used their DARE learning to decide which drugs to try.
Of course, I have no references or strong memories for this study, so I could just be making this up.
Our class didn't get too much out of the D.A.R.E. program, but that's probably because the cop who was teaching us about the evils of alcohol and tobacco offered some of us cigarettes outside of class. :P
DARE Should Be Discontinued
The War on Drugs and DARE are failures
Reality Check Due In Drug Prevention
The New York Times
By Richard Rothstein
September 27, 2000 - Drug use by our youth is a problem that cries out for commitment, diligence, and honesty by school administrators and elected officials. Instead, for far too long, our drug-prevention policies have been driven by mindless adherence to a wasteful, ineffective, feel-good program, Drug Abuse Resistance Education DARE. DARE has been a huge public-relations success, but a failure at accomplishing the goal of long-term drug-abuse prevention.
Before taxpayers' money is spent for drug prevention, any program receiving the funds should prove its worth.
Our school administrators and elected leaders should insist on no less. However, with DARE, the moneyas well as the crucial opportunities to implement programs that actually workhas been blown.
In a recent guest column appearing in this newspaper, Glenn Levant, the president of DARE America, stated that "DARE has become the most successful drug abuse and violence reduction program in the nation..." He is accurate, but only if "success" is based on the amount of tax and foundation money spent on a program or the number of schools that have used the program.
However, if "success" is based on the effectiveness of a program in reaching the goal of reduced drug abuse over the long-term, DARE has been a dismal failure, according to numerous published studies.
In a Kokomo, Ind., study, researchers found that the level of drug use among DARE graduates was almost identical to the usage among non-DARE students. The only statistically meaningful difference was that more DARE students reported recent use of marijuana than those who had not been through the DARE program.
The Department of Justice commissioned the Research Triangle Institute RTI to evaluate DARE. Its published findings reflect that DARE students use more marijuana than non-DARE students.
The RTI concluded that DARE's core-curriculum effect on the use of other drugs, except tobacco, is not statistically significant. According to the RTI, DARE might very well be taking the place of other, more beneficial, drug-prevention programs that adolescents otherwise could be receiving.
When the City of Oakland decided to dump DARE after spending more than 600,000 per year, the director of Oakland's Family Council on Drug Awareness noted, "The bottom line is that DARE is an expensive program that seems to be making the situation worse."
In the longest follow-up study conducted regarding the effectiveness of DARE, the results of which were published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, the researchers noted that "[t]he widespread popularity of DARE is especially noteworthy, given the lack of evidence for its efficacy." They repeated the findings of many other researchers: "[T]he preponderance of evidence suggests that DARE has no long-term effect on drug use."
After it became apparent I was going to terminate Salt Lake City's involvement in the DARE program, several people came to complain at the City Council meeting on July 11. Among them were the director of DARE for the state of Utah, officers of the Utah Council for Crime Prevention, several DARE officers, and a member of the Salt Lake City School Board. Although they all spoke passionately for the continuation of DARE, not one of them made reference to any research published in a peer-reviewed journal demonstrating the effectiveness of DARE. In fact, the Salt Lake City school board member said she was "appalled" because I provided my research to the school board, yet she failed to mention any research to support her apparently intuitive notion that DARE accomplishes its objective.
Drug prevention is too important to be left to those who refuse to become familiar with the research -- or with the availability of other programs that have been proved to work. The DARE program, and those who have advocated it to the exclusion of effective programs, should be held accountable to the public.
Most important, our community should demand that our schools replace DARE with research-based programs that will help us attain our goal of significantly reduced drug abuse among our youth.
Among those programs are Life Skills Training LST, Students Taught Awareness and Resistance STAR, and Athletes Training and Learning to Avoid Steroids ATLAS. I have provided information concerning these programs and their effectiveness to the Salt Lake City school board.
Our common goal is to cut drug abuse among our youth.
A means of helping to accomplish that goal is to implement in our schools drug-prevention programs that actually work. Those who fail to insist on effective drug-prevention programs in our schools are betraying our youth and our community.
And those who are unfamiliar with the research and insist on retaining DARE in our schools simply because it is a "popular" program are not part of the drug-abuse solution; they are part of the problem.
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He lives in a world where those who do not run the client software of the omnipresent meme are unacceptable.
Playboy magazine did an excellent article on the failure that is DARE in October 1998, Page 44. It brings up several studies taht showed DARE students are MORE likely to use drugs than those who do not take the DARE classes.
There was also a well publicized case several years ago when the Department of Justice comissioned a study that confirmed such reports by smaller studies, and decided to try and cover up the resultes after a lawsuit by the DARE foundation.
And if that isn't enough, more food for thought: DARE was started by infamous LAPD chief Darrel Gates, the same man who create SWAT teams (The LAPD SWAT teams were used to attack peaceful protestors at the 2000 Democratic National convention in LA) and was known for allowing racism in the police force, which lead to his resignation after his tolerance of violence towards blacks was exposed in the Rodney King trials.
Dare is a load of crap, nothing more than an example of political pork.
And in my state they had/have a state-wide program that claims "7 out of 10 teens are tobacco free". PLEASE! The people they're spreading this too are mostly in high school. We /know/ how many of us use tobacco, and we know its more than 3 out of 10. You can lie to the grade school kids, but eventually they'll figure the truth out as well, just like we did.
As for the actually percentage, I don't know it for a fact. But I'd say at least 85% have tried it, and at least 60% use do it regularly. It depends on what 'it' is of course. Sadly, alcohol and marijuna have about the same percentage of experimentation, but alcohol has the much higher percentage of usage.
And I agree with you that you can have a good time without something in you, and I personally don't drink or use drugs. But you can't have teachers and police being totalitarian about it, and saying that any use at all is terrible, and you're a terrible person if you drink or try drugs. Let's take a realistic approach. Let the teachers tell about how they got smashed a few times and it didn't help them. But also let them tell about the teacher's party the other night, where almost everyone drank, but it was ok because they thought ahead and had a designated driver, and they didn't have to go to work the next morning. That's what would help students, not this DARE crap.
The DARE program is insufficient because it doesn't fully recognize why people take drugs: It feels good and it meets some need that person has. Until we grapple with the reasons why people use drugs it's impossible to give young people the perspective they need to make positive choices for themselves.
So I'm definately in the camp that desires to see young people really understand the TRUE realities about drug use, not the hyped up versions that are often spread around.
It's certainly a place where communication between parents and their offspring can benefit eachother much more than propoganda.
By what measure should the success of a program like D.A.R.E. be judged?
If the sole objective is to prevent drug use, then the most logical strategy is to warn of the unavoidable, devastating consequences of drug use. Enact strict penalties for drug use (already done) and emphasize them. That's the Big Brother Knows Best strategy -- we're right, and if you fuck up, we're gonna get you!
On the other hand, a program like D.A.R.E. might have the goal of inculcating into the student a respect for the inevitable consequences of any action (a basic idea). For example, students might be taught the risks of drug use, and how to weigh them against the benefits. This is the Free Society strategy, where a person is trusted to make his own choices about his life.
In its current incarnation, D.A.R.E. falls between these two ideals. They do emphasize the harm that the government will do to a person convicted of drug crimes, but they also preach autonomous decision-making and risk-assessment skills. In other words, we trust you to make the Right Choice, but we've got a gun aimed at your head just in case.
Interestingly, a government at either end of the spectrum would be relatively small and efficient, while a government in the middle (like ours) is by necessity brobdingnagian. On one hand, Big Brother can mandate personal, head-mounted video cameras to be worn by every citizen. They can be efficiently monitored, and if anyone's behavior was not acceptable, that person could be swiftly dealt with. On the other hand, a libertarian government would entrust its citizens to make their own choices-- therefore a legal system would be necessary to resolve disputes. Either way, the government is actually quite small and efficient, due to the simplicity of its mission.
The American government (as a whole, state and federal) does not enslave its people, nor does it allow them freedom to make their own choices. This duplicity of intent renders it inefficient and costly. And what could be better for the government? They have found the key to our collective bank vault. It is ambiguity.
What better way to bankrupt a corporation than to be unsure of the product that must be produced!
The reason DARE and other campaigns like it (i was the last year of my school to get teh Reagan anti-drug campaign before DARE was instated... Lots of old yellowed filmstrips of burnout kids, etc...)
Now, i think the problem with campaigns like that is they often come off as propiganda. I for one was interrested to go and do drugs because i wanted to see what all the stink was about. At first I was afraid, which was the desired effect, but after a while i just became curious (like many youth tend to be).
When I was in high school, my friends and i did a whole wide range of drugs just for the hell of it, and it was a shitload of fun, but eventually we grew out of it, and learned to use more moderation, and ended up all having enough responsibilities in the real world that there wasn't enough time to goof off like that any more, but we sure had fun doing it. I think we all viewed the anti-drug campaigns as something irrelivant to plow through, just like the simplified versions of history they teach kids to keep them from being emotionally disturbed, and all that other sort of stuff.
I think the DARE campaign works well for the kids who would use drugs due to peer pressure, which is a good thing, because these people would be doing it for the wrong reason, and without knowing what they are getting into.
The people who did their research first, then did it for fun or experementation will do it no matter what you do to stop them, and they are probably the least likely to be harmed by it, so i guess after all it works okay, because it keeps the people more likely to be hurt out of it, and everybody else can do drugs if they want....
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Play Six Pack Man. I
I don't have a better answer, but I took enough research design to offer an opinion. In stats you can make two sorts of errors: (1) miss something that's really there, and (2) discover something that really isn't. In some rare complicated cases, you can do both. I think we have a winner. Go look at the evidence offered in their own site - under statistical evaluation - chart two - no study even follows these kids to the point where they can legally purchase alcohol. There's no real proof that they've found the secret to stopping abuse, and the odds are that something would work, and they're not doing it. What proof will I accept? Tell me how you're stopping people who become lifelong addicts and abusers and all that that entails. Look, everyone's going to try alcohol, DARE or no DARE. If you have the disease that is alcoholism, you're going to be in trouble long before you know you are, DARE or no DARE. So what can they really tell us? The rest of their evidence seems to be that lots of people want the program - so what? Lots of people want money, that doesn't make it necessarily healthy. And I certainly hope there is something beside the simple authority of the police departments to deter kids - anyone who knows a significant number of officers knows they're no saints. In my experience, which includes attending a college with a criminal justice school, the CS students were among the biggest party animals, one fraternity was suspended from operation after numerous alcohol incidents including the death of one student (the car he was in went over a logging road so fast that he was killed when his head hit the inside of the car roof... an hour later the frats met in the campus pub to console themselves!) If you can offer me a program where none of the officers and teachers use alcohol or drugs, then I might buy it - but I know too many of each (I'm an educator) that can't claim innocence. Preaching to kids about this stuff is a band-aid at best.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Oh jesus, I smoked pot all through High School. I went to the High School for Health Professions too, so I knew what I was doing to my body and mind. But I only smoked after I got home and finished my homework. Then a bowl and some good ole C-64 games. Big deal. I'm a productive member of society and still smoke 16 years later. It really irritates me to think I have to go to jail for smoking a doobie at the beach.
The problem with this is that:
- The horror stories are representative of a small portion of the population that uses drugs, and, concerning the softer drugs,
- It is baseless propaganda
These same children who graduated D.A.R.E. are going to grow up and see that in the Real World very few people live a life controlled by drugs.This, in its own way, is not a good thing. Many of my friends who did graduate D.A.R.E. and became potsmokers and acidtrippers and rollers know just enough about the chemicals they put in their bodies to believe that, instead of being completely and utterly detrimental to their entire life, these drugs are almost completely safe.
So while they now know that marijuana is non-habit forming, they may not know that those who smoke risk a greater chance of neck and throat cancer, along with everything that smoking a cigarette might cause (although since many potsmokers smoke much less marijuana than cigarette smokers, they don't stand as high a risk).
While LSD is practically impossible to overdose on (as is marijuana), and in its pure form does not cause nerve damage, it can cause psychological damage in those who are not prepared for it (i.e. taking a much larger dose than they are mentally capable of handling).
MDMA, or ecstasy, is quite probably linked with minor to significant nerve damage, as well as forms of depression in heavy users.
The problem is not just in the way the D.A.R.E. instructor groups all drugs into one category. It is also the drug laws that persist in the United States. The instructor can't rightly say to a room of fourthgraders that marijuana and LSD have little to no eventual consequences and then reaffirm that they are illegal. The D.A.R.E. program is just a proponent of the U.S.'s draconian antidrug laws.
For the D.A.R.E. program to be viable, it must first be truthfully informative. If children were to get viable and honest information on the various substances out there, as well as methods of using them responibly, drug use may go up, but I believe that hard drug use will go down. But for the D.A.R.E. program to teach children honest information about the drugs out there, the ill-informed and unjust drug laws in the United States would have to be overturned. And that is something I (regrettably) don't see happening anytime soon.
For an extensive database on the different drugs out there, try lycaeum.org and erowid.org. Both are highly informative and lycaeum.org contains the largest trip report database on the web.
ToiletDuk (58% Slashdot Pure)
Heroin is actually one of the safer drugs out there. The dangers posed by heroin use are completely a product of the drug war and the black market that it creates.
Sure, you can get addicted, but addiction itself is not inherently dangerous, as long as you have a reliable and pure source of the drug -- something which is not possible in the current legal and political climate.
Just consider how heroin addicts are treated -- with methadone. Methadone is an opiate, just like heroin and binds to the same receptors (so you can't any effects from heroin). The only difference is that it doesn't make you FEEL GOOD. You're still addicted, but not to herion -- to a socially acceptable drug, one that doesn't make you FEEL GOOD and one that you can obtain a pure and reliable supply for under the pretense of "treatment."
For more information check the lycaeum, or better yet, try Pharmacotheon by Jonathan Ott.
tterb, Lycaeum volunteer.
This will prolly get modded to a troll, but I used to go to DARE meetings to buy pot from other members. However, no-one (in DARE) was into "harder" drugs. So maybe it did maybe it didn't, make your own assumptions out of that.
I, like most of my generation, went through DARE at some point (5th grade in my case). I recall learning about how drugs, alcohol and cigarrettes were the most terrible things to use and what not. And naturally, at that tender age, everyone agreed and swore to never use drugs or smoke or drink etc etc. Im now in my freshman year of college. Drugs, drinking and cigarettes (and any combination of the 3) id say are used by 9/10ths of the students. I think DARE helped them along to that, by educating kids to the "strange and dangerous" wonders of drugs, yet telling them to never use them. This is the same as making a big red button that says "DOES INTERESTING THINGS, BUT DO NOT PUSH!"... of course, everyone pushes the button. So DARE is a failure, and probably did the exact opposite of what it was supposed to in my opinion. The government has always been good about telling us and creating legislation based on the worst cases (drugs, the internet etc) without telling the full truth and letting people judge for themselves.
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The defacement can be viewed at http://www.attrition.org/mirror/attrition/1999/11/ 14/www.dare.com/
He admitted to it a few weeks later after the FBI raided his house and confiscated his computers. They're charging the (then 17) teen as an adult who can face up to 30 years imprisonment (15 years per 2 counts, which is what he's actually being charged with) and $18,000 in fines. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/9701. html
Now, I don't use drugs. I don't care about using drugs. But I know what fucked up is. This is going too far. Legislation is being pushed to make it illegal to even write about illegal drug use.
Particular groups of religious people who don't use drugs and strongly discourage their use are mormons and others.
Respond to s
Huh! I suppose economic status and skin color define economic incentive and morals. Bull shit. What works for one dealer works for all and they all cary the cheapest crap they can make the most money on. It's all about making money somewhere along the line. Greed.
Yeh, I know people who sell that shit. It's all about trust, right? They have great morals and would never knowingly buy or sell anything harmful, but they don't really know either. They are weak as are their cutomers. What are you going to do if you get burnt?
You are free to waste your time and energy just like they do. I'm free to do as I please too and I'm going to call you a scum bag. That's right AC, last post you were a lawyer now your an engineer. You are'nt shit, even if you do make lots of money which is doubtful.
Thanks for reminding me about guns, intimidation and murder which are very much part of the drug trade. Wanna kill a narq? That's what I thought. I've heard plenty of talk about stuff like that. It's much more important that you are free to sell your poison than other people's lives are important, right? Is that part of the 69th ammendment, the freedom to profit? Is'nt it worth killing a few sheeple so you can get stoned? What a great person you are, and what regard you have for your fellow man. You know so much more than me and are such a liberator.
There is a big difference between liberty and liscence.
Education should continue to be towards prevention. Teaching people to avoid loosers like you keeps them from missing out on life.
If I lived next to you, and my kids figured out that you were smoking dope, I'd call the cops and let them see what a looser you are. Tollerance for that kind of thing leads to bad stuff, like my friend who lost his 18 year old son to heroine. Yep, he had a lot of money, bought from trusted people and got sold to when he was 12 years old. The story is all the same. Everybody's free.
"Hard drugs" is a false distinction. That's just like saying illegal drugs are bad (perhaps worse). Oh that's right, hard drugs are the powdered ones, the ones you snort or shoot, or the ones that poor people do. Right?
I'm hoping this article was a troll, but in case it's not....
The US Military wants no part of the drug war. It's one thing to defend the US coast and borders from military attack, but what you're describing is the wholesale conversion of the US Military into a domestic police force.
History teaches that this is usually soon followed by a military coup. In fact, a well-received essay (which I haven't read, unfortunately) by a senior officer described exactly how the chain of events seen in other countries could lead to a US Military Junta in the early twenty-teens. (I believe he used 2012 in his essay.)
Even if American human nature really is different (ha!) and nobody anywhere within or without the US Military is ever tempted to lead a coup, there's the profound difference between the actions of military and police forces. The military uses whatever force is necessary to counter a threat. Normally, the fastest and most efficient way to do that is to blow the other guy away before he does the same to you. The police (LA SWAT team tactics notwithstanding) is expected to use the minimal amount of force necessary. Suspects are allowed to escape, if capture poses too much risk to others. In physical confrontations, police are injured at nearly twice the rate as suspects. Suspects civil rights must be observed throughout arrest and detention. All of this is completely contrary to the training required of military personnel. (Remember, they are solving a very different problem. Different problem, different strategy, different tools.)
And the specifics of your proposal are ludicrous. Do you have any idea how much totally innocent cross-border traffic there is? Did you understand all of the quirks of the border? (E.g., school children living in Pt. Roberts, Washington, ride a school bus into Canada, then back into the US to attend school. Close the border and you'll have to arrange ferry service. Hell, you'll have to build the harbor facilities for the ferry!) Do you realize that much of the US-Canadian border is no more than a ditch between subdivisions? Do you realize how much of the border is wild forest unmarked except for a narrow band of downed trees?
(And what will you do about Alaska? Will you insist that all domestic flights from Alaska go through customs, or will you station troops along those thousands of miles of border?
How, precisely, will sealed borders reduce the domestic production of various drugs? Some drugs are imported, but marijuana is one of the top-five cash crops in many states. Meth labs cause urban hazmat teams endless hassles. E, LSD, and countless other drugs can be synthesized anywhere you have access to the chemicals. Are you going to send troops with all shipments of antihistamines? Armed guards in every grocery and drug store?
And what, pray tell, does "send them back where they came from" mean when you're talking about a US National reentering the country? In the same what "home is where they can't turn you away," one of the rights of US citizenship is that we *can't* be deported from this country, or refused entry. (We might be arrested and detained, but we can't be forced to another country. Contrawise, no other country can be forced to accept us.) A nearby INS lockup is holding some individuals who have no citizenship (they were stripped of Vietnamese citizenship after the war, and don't consider it home anyway since they left as infants, but never acquired US citizenship and are now disqualified due to felony convictions). Since no country will accept them, and no country can be forced to take them, they are languishing in prison indefinitely.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
In my school I see kids all the time at partys smoking up while wearing their dare shirts from 5th grade. I would say 90% of the kids in my school do drugs and we all went through dare in 5th grade and it didnt seem to work at all.
D.A.R.E. is a great program in ways. Kids need to know that using hardcore drugs is going to end up being very very negative... even death... lieing to them by saying things like pot are going to kill them, make them steril, etc. are just going to revers the effect ... once they find out you werent truthfull about one drug, it's "fu**k of DARE, hello crack"... ya see? As far as the war on drugs... did you know that under Clinton's Administration, over 3,470,545 people have been arrested for marijuana offenses... a drug that no matter how hard you try, cant actually harm you?! ... ugg. Stop spending the money on the war on drugs and spend it on giving every household in the states at least one computer & a email account... much more would come from somthing like that... ... I gotta stop this now, cuz I'm getting pissed off.
-- BryGuy
NORML
Libertarian Party
The average student at my school had an SAT score in the range of 1500. The average student at my school also smokes massive amounts of weed. Furthermore, many also indulge in occasional usage of other, "harder" drugs such as LSD, mushrooms, and MDMA.
Had I believed DARE, I would have expected the academic structure of this campus to have disintigrated long ago. Imagine how I would have been surprised to learn that things have been operating like this around here since the mid 1960s!
It gets crazier, though--- apparently, the city in which my school is located has been just as liberal on drug use as have the students for decades now. Had I believed the most basic concepts taught in DARE, I would be expecting this place to be a crumbling wasteland full of smelly hippies and heroin addicts. Imagine what my surprise would have been when I arrived to find the bustling urban space that it is! Yes, my city has its problems, but they are they type that are representative of economic growth and prosperity; i.e., housing costs, traffic, etc.
I guess what I'm saying is that most intelligent young people don't buy the DARE message. We know that drug use in moderation does not make one a burned out, apathetic slacker. Instead of spreading misinformation and using scare tactics, why doesn't DARE teach kids to be intelligent in their decisions? Explain to them that the individual with self control can succeed even while using drugs. Teach them the true dangers of drug use (and maybe even explain to them that most of those dangers only exist because the drugs are illegal and thus unregulated), but most of all, stop lying to America's children. Sooner or later, most of those kids are gonna find out that their DARE cop was full of shit, and once they do, the entire message is lost.
The answer is yes, if what you are doing can hurt someone else. Blowing weed around a concert can get me shitcanned. Selling dope to children will fuck them up. The list goes on and on. People outlaw what anoys them.
The DARE program is supposed to educate people about the effects of substances and how addicts are made. Does it always work? No. Has it worked at all? Yes, and that's worth every cent. Everything can be better.
When I was in high school, I laughed at the D.A.R.E. program and thought it was very patronizing. Of course, I also had Nancy Reagan saying "Ignore everything we just taught you and JUST SAY NO!". However, looking back I am actually in favor of DARE, but not for the reasons it's proponents give. I approve of DARE because it was the ONLY drug education I received anywhere other than the street. After going through DARE I knew, more or less, what the difference was between barbituates, opiates, and hallucinogens were. I knew which drugs were heavily "physically addictive", while others were "psychologically addictive", or habit-forming. I was able to use this information in my later years to avoid certain substances. Nobody else ever told me anything substantical about illegal substances. Without DARE, I would have known nothing, and may well have equated pot on the same "level" as crack or heroin, and ended up hooked on something, completely ignorant of the consequences. At least with DARE I had a basic set of guidelines to go with. I could have used less propaganda and more factual information, but I'll take what I can get, and I'm glad the kids in this country are getting any information at all.
Then I went to party and they were all smoking the weed. I asked them about the weed and they said it was fun and I should try some. I said 'No', that's peer pressure and I want none of it. They looked at me funny then said 'Oh well, more for us'.
The next day all the kids who were smoking the weed were at school. Even the smart ones. It was test day and I was nervous. All the kids who were smoking the weed didn't seem as nervous. They all got A's. I got a D.
I asked teacher again about the Weed. She said weed is bad and will kill me and if I smoke the weed I'm going to die. I told her that lots of the other kids at the school smoke the weed, and they seem alive and OK. "NO" Teacher said. "All of them are bad."
The next week I was at another party and decided teacher must be wrong since all the kids are having fun, so I smoked the weed too. Boy! It was fun. It felt so good, and the Pink Floyd really made sense. When I went home I thought 'I'm going to die now'.
The next day, I woke up feeling good. Great. At the school Teacher said drugs hook you for good and you can never stop taking them and if you try it hurts bad.
I didn't want to hurt bad, so I asked my friend who had the weed if I could have some more so I didn't hurt. He said he didn't have any so we went and saw a movie. I didn't hurt at all. I went three weeks with none of the weed, and I felt normal.
Then out on the playground there was a guy selling the crack. I saved up my lunch money for the crack. But before I did it I'd better ask Teacher. I asked 'Whats the difference between the weed and the crack'? Teacher said there was no difference. The weed and the crack are bad just the same.
So I smoked the crack, because the weed was not bad for me, so I figured the crack was not bad for me. Boy, teacher was right. Now I needed the crack and if I didn't get the crack it hurt bad.
I ODed and I died. If only I listened to DARE.
The Internet is generally stupid
Who's lying? Your state is bigger than your highschool.
I feel sorry for the kids at your school. They will become tomorows adult smokers. The only educated people I know that smoke cigarettes started when they were 15 or so. All of them suffered some stunting of their growth and now wish they could quit. I feel much worse for those that will get peer pressured into worse.
Get this though, those people constitute a minority of the population at large. There, I hope that helps.
Do things for yourself.
I won the DARE essay contest in my class. I now have a water bong right next to me. Drugs make me smarter.
First - chances are if you are too outright critical of D.A.R.E, your article will be censored.
Second, I think the entire War on Drugs has been a failure in the worst way, but especially 'education' programs like D.A.R.E. Why? They don't educate, they preach fear. "Don't Do Drugs" - rather than teach the harms of drugs, perhaps giving examples - perhaps even finding people who have been through rehab to come in and talk, they preach fear, just a blanket of "Don't Do Drugs".
At least *I* never received any actual facts about drug usage, side effects, anything. Just that they were 'bad', or even sometimes 'uncool' (laughable, my teacher telling me what is hip).
The reason I find this hilarious is that the commercials nowdays urge parents to tell their kids about the harms of drugs, and guess what - I DON'T KNOW. I know that someone told me they were bad, preached it day after day, because that was part of their job. People do the same thing in bleach commercials on television, but at least *there* they offer something better.
So I say, if you want to make this program effective, really *Educate* people. Bring in ex-herion and cocaine addicts, ones that can talk better than Crackhead Bob, and have them educate the students. As a plus, you can pick from many Major League Baseball players. You will probably not find any ex-marijuana addicts, but hey, maybe you can keep people away from the really heavy and aweful drugs like speed and herion.
But don't ask me to educate my kids, because all I have to give to them is fear and slogans, and I won't do it (when I have kids).
The only contact I had with DARE was in 4th grade. We had an assembly hosted by a police officer and the main thing I learned and took away from the assembly was that police officers don't prosecute drug users, they prosecute drug pushers and sellers.
As it turned out, I grew into a person who doesn't use drugs and seldom drinks, but after that assembly I wasn't as scared of the legal implications of using drugs as I was before.
On the other side of the coin, DARE might as well be called SCARE by the lack of education on exactly how 'bad' specific drugs are relative to one another. If they were honest, they'd be warning on the dangers of drinking (instead of just drinking and driving) in a louder voice than they cry the dangers of casual marijuana use.
Kevin Fox
Kevin Fox
In my school system, we were part of D.A.R.E for at least one marking period ( usually as part of gym ) for at least 3 or 4 years. I don't feel that it was very effective to myself and my school mates. Most kids in my school decide to spend Friday and Saturday nights drinking. At least one third of the school smokes cigarrets. And a considerable amount of people smoke marajuana. Some people even smoke weed during lunch. There are people who dont take part in any of this, but who says D.A.R.E was responsibe? Every day you see PSAs on TV talking about drugs, alcohol, and smoking. Many parrents remind their children of the dangers these substances can have on you. So, I feel that D.A.R.E is just a waste of money in my town. It just goes in one ear and out the other.
http://www.nu-vision.org
As far as I have understood from a BBC interview, the filosophy behind this unique experiment in Madrid is simple: in a democratic, tolerant society you cannot force a hard drug addict to kick off just like you cannot force someone to think.
And hard drug addicts are beside inflicting harm on themselves mainly a problem because they steal or commit other criminal activities to finance their addiction.
Besides this hard junkies sometimes also become violent as a reaction on their shot (think about Jimmy Hendrickx who is said to have been a very friendly and sympathetic man but was famous for his violent outbursts after taking a portion of hard stuff).
Thirdly specifically for intravenous narcotics: the problem of the needle sharing by which deceases spread.
Narcosalas are places comparable to hospitals or hostels which offer the hard drugs free to the addicted on condition that they consume them inside the narcosalas. There is a small medical and psychiatric team which takes care of the hygiene (no shared needles e.g.) and of safety (like violent reaction afterwards et altera). Of course if one of their patients wants to kick the habit he gets their full support. Result: hard drug addicts are not anymore stealing to pay their drugs, are better controlled because they are in a central place and most importantly THERE IS NO ILLEGAL MARKET ANYMORE FOR NARCOTICS. I do not know whether all I said is correct. I would really appreciate if some real Madrileno would correct me. Anyway, being against hard drugs myself, I am very much in favour of this solution. Why isn't it applied on a larger scale? I see two reasons why it might (potentialis):
The nice thing about Windows is: it does not just crash; it displays a nice little dialog box and let's you press 'OK'
Hey, it's paraquat time again!
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
ToiletDuk (58% Slashdot Pure)
They are especially big at the annual Seafair parades. Several companies paint one of their trucks black and put the huge DARE signs on them. People walk alongside these trucks (usualy they are the huge semis to impress the kids) and hand out DARE literature.
This has been going on for approximately 15 years now. Same trucks. Same signs.
Why they are not at Freemont or the Gay and Lesbian Pride march; who knows.
Anyone else in Seattle notice them?
Are they in Parades in any other city? The bowl parades?
Cleara
all my friends know that dare did nothing to prevent us from using drugs, alcohol, or tobacco. all it did was teach us the lingo
And now, 10 years later, I have done alcohol, marijuana, LSD, and MDMA, (I am also now a smoker, which is something I tremendously regret), and I feel I am no worse off for it. Until I came to college, I had an incredible lack of proper information on the subject and wouldn't have been much more cautious about trying different substances.
The thing I see as the greatest problem with D.A.R.E. is the downplaying of the dangers of alochol, since they are mainly concerned with preventing underage drinking. In fact, however, alcohol is much worse for the human body than a lot of other drugs. It's simply been grandfathered into our society because it's been around for so long. I believe that if people were simply given decent information on these substances (At sites such as Erowid.org and lycaeum.org (Lyceaum is much larger but poorly organized, Erowid is beautifully organized and a great place to start for real information on drugs)) that we would see an increase in "soft" drug use, but also a decease in hard drug use.
Of course, my personal belief is that the US should legalize ALL drugs, not just some. They should also retract any and all laws that govern crimes against ones self. (ie- Some state just recently outlawed sex toys.. what a complete load of BS). What people do in their own homes should be up to them. Granted, there should be laws governing their actions while on these substances (ie- things similar to drunk driving laws).
The results of making these drugs legal would mean 1) An increase in the quality of street drugs (which has been a problem with MDMA) 2) Would lead to a decrease in price 3) would eliminate the crime associated with illegal drug trafficing 4) Would create a new source of revenue for the US government, or the drug companies, while eliminating the need to spend trillions on the "War against drugs" 5) Would result in an overall more informed populace.
Of course we all know how wonderfully draconian the US government loves to be when deciding what its citizens are and aren't allowed to do to themselves. Isn't it a great society we live in? (Well, it's pretty decent, not great though, but it's the best the human race has come up with so far)
You got to hold Liel the Lion! Yeah! We also had Mcgruff the crime dog come in!...what? It was supposed to teach about but drugs? NO SHIT?!
D.A.R.E. is a failure becuase it relies on slanted truths, propoganda, biased reporting and outright lies. Because of this offensive tact that D.A.R.E. has perpetrated on our youth, drug abuse is still rampant. Why? Because D.A.R.E. refuse to acknowledge that a large segment of kids will try drugs no matter what, and that giving them the facts without muddying it with all the preachy bullshit and moralistic crap thrown into it might actually work. Because of this D.A.R.E. still refuses to see that like anything there is a fine line between use and abuse. Every kid I know who once smokes pot after being brainwashed by D.A.R.E. comes away realizing that all the things that they were told about it were outright lies. They then feel betrayed, and any trust they may have had towards law enforcement and authority goes right out the window.
And becuase trust has been betrayed, the problem is compounded because now the kids are more willing to try more addictive and drugs and in dangerous quantities, ignoring what might have been factual information, leaving more kids more addicted and abusing drugs than before had they been given factual information in the first place!
www.enthea.org
Forager
student of animation and the fine arts
As you can clearly see, at least back when I was in D.A.R.E., the situations kids were tought to react to absolutely unrealistic to begin with. In my experience, and opinoin, D.A.R.E. teaches kids to be snitches (i.e. report people who you think might be drug users/dealers to your parents, teachers, or the authorities), and teaches them a host of overexaggerated factoids meant to scare impressionable young minds into not using substances. Maybe it works on some people, but observation and common sense dictates that people who are going to use drugs are going to use them regardless of whether or not someone tells them not to. D.A.R.E., and indeed the whole "war on drugs" is a futile and senseless waste of taxpayer dollars.
---------------
"Cut word lines. Cut music lines. Smash the control images. Smash the control machine." - William S. Burroughs
A couple years after I went through the program, I found out that my DARE officer was arrested for possession of marijuana. It then made sense to me that he would jump on the desks and scream at us, "IEEE DON'T WANT YOU TO DOOOO DRUUUGSSS!!"
Anyway, any program that blatantly lies to kids is silly. Kids are smart and they will inevitably ask for a better answer than "Because we said so."
Although I feel DARE fails to prevent drug use, it does serve as a source of somewhat reliable information on the drugs themselves. Although this is not the primary aim of the program, it does aid in informing a future drug user of the dangers involved- if anything, it leads to the use of safer or less harmful drugs. Personally, the program contributed to my interest in certian drugs, and made me cautious of the dangerous varieties. An informed drug user is much safer than one who experiments with whatever they find.
Being in high school, I can tell you that DARE had no lasting impact on anyone at my school. You walk off campus at lunch, instantly 1/2 the kids pull out cigarettes (note: 49% of teenagers in the US smoke is the last study I heard).
I remember in 5th grade having a police officer come in and teach us about drugs and their effects. He failed to get through to us, but rather he tough us more about HOW to use the damned stuff than how bad it was. He would just start talking about some drug, how people sniffed it or injected it, blah blah blah, and then throw out some random name of someone who died from using it. But he was talking to 5th graders, he didn't get through to anyone.
In high school, anti-drug programs are just a joke. Kids see other kids smoking all the time, and there is always that peer pressure for you to start smoking.
I heard that 19/20 kids try smoking at least once before they are 18. How can 95% of kids try smoking if these programs have gotten through to them? Obviously it's a failure, and the program needs to be revamped to have a lasting effect on the youth of this country.
FYI, I'm part of the 1/20 who never smoked. Why get hooked on something that costs money and kills you?
At my school, DARE went on through part of 4th grade and all of 5th. When we were going through it, it was very effective - the sergeant from the local police force was a great guy and seemed to truly care about the kids. After we went to middle school the next year, I remember him coming in during lunch periods to say hi to kids he had in DARE and see how they were doing. It was a great show of support and caring. (The school was awful, however, and actually had him banned from the building because the principal didn't want him in "his school." Jesus.)
I'm still of the opinion though, as I said in the subject, that it was stopped too early. Starting to educate kids at an early age is not bad, but this was stopped after 5th grade. Then in 6th and 7th grade, most of the people I knew started smoking (cigarettes), and quickly moved on to drinking, pot, etc., etc. I think most people in charge of these programs don't realize how early kids are exposed to drugs, sex, etc.
I wonder sometimes how many less people would be smoking, from my graduating class, if they'd kept DARE going until the end of middle school or even into high school and kept up the education on drugs. Same with sex education - so many of my friends got pregnant within a year of our graduation, and I doubt they wanted to become mothers at 18 or 19. A lot of them have really skewed ideas of what dangers there are in unprotected sex and how pregnancy really happens. And our school stopped sex ed at 7th grade. Hmm.
"if you were a radix sort, you'd be in queue t."
Second, you make a point that it is harmful to your health. But what makes that a crime? It's much more of a health problem than a crime. Almost 2 million people in the U.S. are in prison. About half are on nonviolent drug charges. We have the highest per capita prison rate. Higher than China, and even higher than in Russia. Studies have proven that every one dollar spent on helping fight addiction is 22 times more effective than heavy policing, prison costs, etc. Bribery, intimidation, and murder happen only because they need to stay away from the police and keep thriving. And arrest them for bribery and murder then, not drugs.
I'm not convinced that Alzheimer causes the
brain cells to die. My dad died of Alzheimer
and my own experience with him shows something
else. Whenever I would touch his hands he
would come back to reality and just as sharp
and intelligent as ever. My impression was that
the electrical connections from his memory cells
to his brain weren't being made not that the
cells were dead or dying.
Just think of your computer with the traces
to the microprocessor cut, would that imply
that the memory sims are dead?
I remember when I was in highschool and they had a D.A.R.E. program there. We never cared what they had to say. For some people they have to learn on their own no matter what you tell them. They gave us Brochures and we would throw them away without reading them. They would give us folders with a lot of info in it. We would use it to roll our joints on. Like was mentioned in the response from the "presidential candidates" the war against drugs is a failure. The only peple who listened in Drug education assemblies was the straight edge preppy kids who weren't in danger of starting drugs anyway.
In highschool I smoked weed, Drank, Did tons of acid, dabbled with inhaling odd things... Now I am 24 and do absolutely none of them. I don't even drink. I learned by experiencing the things I did myself. I liked it when I was young but I have no purpose for them.
P.S. addiction is an excuse. You can quit anytime you want. I did.
I'm a senior at a Catholic High School in New Hampshire, a Catholic School for Gods sake, and just about every single person in my class has tried smoking weed, I guarentee it. I would guess somewhere around the 99% mark. I can't think of anyone in my school who's tried anything harder than weed than maybe 2 or 3 people. Most people at least know doing hard drugs is taking a risk that they're probably not willing to take.
Then how come there is an abundance of high quality marijuana at this time, especially in Canada. There was an article in Time Magazine about BC Buds not too long ago. Maybe in the projects they sell the cheapest shit they can get their hands on..
as for 'laced' weed and whatnot, it simply is not cost effective to do so without telling the customer.
You are such a fool! You have bought everything the International Drug Supply Bussiness wants to sell you. Most people do not smoke that shit, and fewer people are going to despite your delusions. It's for loosers, and they all tell the same stories.
What the hell is quality dope? What makes you think your dealer, or his dealer gives a shit about you? Why do you want any of that stuff to begin with?
Here, junior, is how you get your hands on laced weed. You go to a party and everyone has a good time. When everyone is good and intoxicated, you dealer will take out the "special" joint, and you will thank him for it, sucker. You might not even remember it the first few times, but your body will and it will rejoice. This is how many addicts are made. It's not a concious decission, it's just bussiness as usual. The dealer may not make much money taking you and your parents to the cleaners, but who said crime really paid? You are better off at another party, one where there are no scum bags selling drugs.
It's not supprising that you go to a Catholic school and have smoked dope. A bank robber was asked why he robbed banks. His answer was, "Because that's where the money is." My friend's dead kid was in a Catholic high school, and they had a bigger heroine problem than they thought. Manditory drug testing helped(typical Catholic choice: 1 confess, get treatment, stay clean be forgiven; 2 refuse or fail the test and leave the school). Go figure it out for yourself in your comfortable little suburban world.
BZZZT.
Thank you for playing. Repeat after me. Cigarettes & alcohol are PHYSICALLY ADDICTIVE. Pot is NOT. You need to go read a book by a Harvard Medical Doctor (No, not Dr. Leary), Dr. Lester Grinspoon, titled Marihuana Reconsidered. He started out trying to provide medical proof that your assertion is correct and ended up proving exactly the opposite.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
The US was founded on principles of personal freedom. The way I like to think of it is "my freedom to punch you in the nose ends where your nose begins", ie you should be free to do what you want as long as it doesn't infringe on the freedom of someone else.
Murder and rape are crimes with victims. I don't think anyone in their right mind can argue for legalization of murder and rape!
Drug use is a different issue. Yes there are negative sides to drug *abuse*, but casual drug *use* is a very different thing. There are many drugs that we all use on a day to day basis. Caffine. Nicotine. Alcohol. As best I can tell, the distinction between legal and illegal drugs is arbitrary. For some reason alcohol is legal, and pot is illegal. (And you can make a *very* good argument that alcohol is much worse for society than pot and other recreational drugs, but that is a whole differnt topic.)
I know that drug *abuse* is a problem to society, but it is a medical problem, not a legal problem. Without the war on drugs, there would be no black market for drugs, with all it's associated evils, and the only victims of drug *abuse* would be the users themselves (well, and there family, etc.).
If we look at it from the point of view of how does the WoD impact my person freedoms, it seems to limit them... increase in crime from black market trade ruins neighborhoods, etc. It seems to me that the WoD is much worse for society than the problem of drug *abuse* ever was.
The WoD has obvious victims, ie the folks who are locked up for non-violent crimes, the fella who got his car stereo stolen, etc. I think the WoD itself should be illegal!
You'd think we would have learned from the prohibition, but I guess not.
--Rob
[D]onut [A]wareness [R]esistance [E]ducation.
We must continue to support the DARE Program, or there will be more overweight cops on the street.
For the good of our children, please support your local DARE officer!
DARE - Keeping America's Cops Thin.
I saw an investigative report about this that claimed it wasn't doing children much better. The D.A.R.E. program they showed looked much differant than the one I went through, with an advertising-esque lion and such. The main point was that all it was doing was introducing children to the concept of drugs, drug abuse and gangs. I'm inclined to agree: most of us out in suburbia didn't know about drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes in the fourth grade, but afterwards children were more informed about the terminology of drugs than their negative consequences. Another point the report claimed was that the program never tells students that, to paraphrase, "drugs are bad, mkay?" D.A.R.E. expects that 12 year old children will consider the consequences of smoking that joint. The real problem is that its still preaching to the choir. The children who listen weren't going to drink, smoke or do drugs anyways. The program I went through also made a point of telling us that not everyone was doing drugs, etc, but the amount of people doing these things did still rose anyways. At K-State theres a local area just outside called "Aggieville" which is basically a ton of alcohol serving businesses, and its the only source of entertainment on the weekends. However, theres also a "Project Wellness" campaign that says that most students "drink moderately if at all," meaning they have between 0-5 drinks at a party, party one or fewer nights per week, and have one drink an hour. Now, that would look to support the educating students how little students drinks, but theres also another factor: the statistics may reflect the distrubution of GPAs, class, department and gender, but it was taken outside the library on a friday evening. So in this case, its actually lying to the students, and fortunately, no one believes it. The head of the project is told by his subordinates that they don't think its accurate/effective/ethical but I guess he read the same article as above.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
The only major thing that I think D.A.R.E has accomplished is providing ironic clubware for ravers. Can I get a witness?
DARE uses authority figures in an attempt to intimidate children into blind compliance. As such, it is not education. It is manipulation and conditioning. Manipulating and conditioning children into blind compliance is wrong! It hinders their ability to make intelligent decisions, it creates unnecessary fear, it discourages rational thought. It hinders education!
DARE can tear families apart. Children have been conditioned from an early age to be loyal to 'authority figures'. If DARE presents them with sufficient evidence of their parents evils (smoking pot), they sometimes betray their families and rat them out. At the very least they will learn about conflicting loyalties, regardless of their parents habits.
Perhaps some children rat their families out becausd they are worried that they might 'die' from smoking pot. So DARE uses innaccurate data to manipulate children.
I wonder why DARE is even needed. I mean, if our education system teaches children to think for themselves, to make rational intelligent decisions, isn't DARE redundant? Unfortunately, our education doesn't teach these things. Just the opposite. So DARE exposes weakness in our education system.
DARE exposes what our education system does teach: ignorance. By emphasizing rote memorization of innaccurate and/or incomplete 'facts', by using authority to intimidate, by emphasizing punishments and rewards, by encouraging blind obedience and discouraging active exploration, DARE builds on previous lessons.
DARE is ineffective at doing what it claims to be doing. But it is effective in other ways. It reinforces the lessons taught to children throughout their lives at school: obey, don't question and don't explore. These lessons are the very antithesis of a real education.
My class took part in D.A.R.E. during the first year it was introduced to North Carolina's elementary schools. I was completely ignorant of the illegal drug scene before D.A.R.E.. After D.A.R.E. I knew how to identify, take and buy all sorts of illegal drugs. He (the officer) also introduced us to the concept of property confiscation. He drove a nice black Camaro with "DARE" painted on the hood. They had taken it from someone accused of dealing drugs.
Draw your own conclusions.
Poster enjoys alcohol, but has never gotten a DWI because he does not drink and drive (duh!). Sleep in your car!
If you follow this advice, follow this little bit also. Hide your keys before you pass out. If a cop taps on the window, you wake up (and will undoubtedly smell of alcohol), have your keys on you and you officially have a DWI. It's not fair or right, IMHO, but that's what MADD and others have left us with. (note: this may only be true in Colorado, check with local authorities)
On another note, I've been in a hottub with 17 naked people (of various sexes) in the middle of the afternoon, and I have alcohol to thank for it. (I've had good times sober too, but not quite as extreme nor as often)
--
+&x
I don't think Slashdot should have a jurisdiction. I figure if it's interesting, we might as well discuss it. If it's not interesting, don't participate.
I also think that discussing how police officers are sent into classrooms to manipulate children 'matters'.
And yes, it is about technology. In fact, it's the most powerful technology of all! "Social Technology".
It has, by far, the greatest influence on our lives. Yet most are oblivious to its machinations. Now that's power!
It is, however, a terrible tool used by police snitchs and clerical errors, and some instances of political revenge. "Dynamic Entry" home invasions are causing increasingly more deaths of completely innocent people from wrong addresses and delibrate malice.
Here is a link from a recent FreeRepublic thread on the rising innocent body count. 8(
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
D.A.R.E was extremely good for education about drugs and their effects, but I don't feel it has much effect as to whether or not kids "do" drugs. I went through the program at my school in fifth grade and have never used drugs, but I really don't think D.A.R.E influenced this decision with the possible exception of that it told me how exactly some drugs affect the body and I've never had any desire to be "high" or anything such.
-- Napalm sticks to kids.
You've been listening to the dribble put out by DARE, haven't you?
Smoking marijuana is certainly not as harmful and must less likely to cause cancer than tobacco. The nicotine is physically addictive and can be a bitch to stop, while marijuana is not physically addictive at all.
And the funny thing is... you mention that marijuana is dangerous because you don't know what your getting. Isn't situation this caused by the outlawing of this substance? I remember someone once saying, "You can make some illegal, but you can't make it unpopular." This is true as illustrated with the alcohol prohibition in the early 20th century. People were either making their own or buying from smugglers, and since you didn't know what you were getting in terms of quality, it was dangerous.
And I think you have some misconceptions about marijuana's effects. Marijuana does not impair your judgement. Smoking marijuana means relaxation and it does slow one's reaction time, but it is not an intoxicant! Marijuana is also safer chemically, as it does not destroy brain cells like alcohol, but I believe I mentioned that already.
As far as I can tell, the DARE people are simply trying to warn people why they should not get intoxicated. Yes, all of it can lead to addictions you would not expect. Here's how it works, for those of you who slept through DARE or lack the imagination needed to see though dope smoking as a harmless activity.
The world is just full of assholes who want to sell you stuff. Their sucess is founded on many of the missconceptions posted around here. A lack of understanding that DARE tries to correct is why tobbaco, alcohol, and drugs are The Slimy Global Bussiness it is.
You want to have a good time right? You've been convinced that intoxicants are somehow part of that, so there you go. No big deal at most parties. If you follow the beer commercials, you don't get laid, you might puke, but hopefully you go to sleep and learn your lesson. You can do this as often as it does not interfere with the things you really want to do in life (not much!).
Now let's have a party with deamon pot. Still no big deal, most of the time. But what happens if you are good and intoxicated and the "special" joint comes out? Duh, you smoke it of course. Now, you might not remember doing that but your body will. Do that a few times and, congratulations, you are a heroine (today's cheapest addictive drug) addict. That was easy, was'nt it? That's the beauty of pot. It's almost never a concious decision!
The prevention is two fold. First try not to drink so much. You don't need it. Second, avoid parties where people smoke dope. Gosh, sound like DARE don't it?
In my community, we used a program slightly similar to DARE in elementary/middle school called "CounterAct". Our city's police took the program and sort of tweaked it a bit into an actually objective program that wasn't so much the "use drugs and you're an evil person" argument you hear about in DARE, but more of a "here are the facts, you decide" type of thing. I think it worked great. From my observation, it may not have entirely stopped people from drinking and smoking pot, but it got rid of alot of the mentality that you had to do that stuff because you were being told not to. I think it helped breed a generation of kids who were at least responsible with their decisions about drugs. The CounterAct program appeared to be so successful in my semi-suburban hometown (Sheboygan Falls, WI), that the largest city in the county (Sheboygan) abandoned their highly unsuccessful DARE program and switched over to CounterAct. I'm pretty sure nearly all the schools in the entire county now use the tweaked version of CounterAct, most of them having abandoned their original DARE programs. I guess that says alot about DARE's effectiveness.
People who have used drugs seem to get lower grades than when they were not taking drugs as a norm
Your assertion is full of weasel words. You say drug users "seem" to get lower grades, and "appear to get lower scores" because you don't really have the facts, but you want to shout your opinions anyway. Next time you want to debate the effects of pot-smoking on students, bring a few facts instead of your subjective anecdotes.
Most of the studies I have seen from professional teaching institutes have in fact corroprates this
Then link to the studies, or quote the relevant bits. And for chrissakes, learn to spell and use proper verb tense.
This is one of the tell tale signs that parents have been instructed to see if a child is taking drugs
DARE also instructs parents to be suspicious of children wo are concerned for world peace, the environment, or who favor decriminalization, none of which are positive proof of drug use. Your point?
I personally want to know how people on slashdot can say one thing and the data says another
I want to know how you can claim to have the data on your side, without quoting so much as one statistic. Please go troll somewhere else.
0 1 - just my two bits
Dude, it makes you stupid. That's why they call it dope. It messes with your head directly and lasts much longer than boozing.
Under it's influence you are more likely to think, say and do things you would not. That's why some people think it's "mind expanding". So is lead oxide by that definition. This is an impairment of judgement.
The town is Lebanon, OR (97355). I understand that the officer (Martinez IIRC) was eventually suspended. Took a matter of years though.
In my opinion, the war on drugs is pretty stupid anyway. Prisons overflowing with people due to marijuana, despite (a) being a legal medicine in places now, and (b) alcohol being more "dangerous." Think back to the prohibition.
(And actually, I think any "victimless", "protecting the people from themselves" crimes shouldn't be crimes. People want to waste away on crack? Fine by me... educate them on how it'll more or less wreck their lives, don't federally fund their rehab, and if they do it in private, it's their business. People want to off themselves? Well, it's their life, do what you want. Et cetera...)
Boubaki
-- did you get my letter? / did you get it today? yeah, i got a letter / i threw it away - Sleater-Kinney
Makes you stupid?
Who coined that term, "dope," anyhow?
And even if marijuana does dampen inhibitions (which i'm not sure on, i'll have to check), how is this impairment of judgement? Under the influence of alcohol, you have trouble thinking straight and making correct decisions. This has nothing to do with inhibitions.
Dude, it makes you stupid. That's why they call it dope. It messes with your head directly and lasts much longer than boozing
Spoken by someone who has absolutly no idea what he is talking about.
And LSD is called "mind expanding" not pot. You are arguing a point that you know nothing about. You are arguing your moral conviction using your feelings to guide you and not logic, fact, or proof.
Surely, you're joking. While marijuana is not nearly as bad a say, heroin, or crack, it is definitely not good for you. The massive "tar" content of your average joint makes it at least as bad a a pack of filtered cigarettes.
There's a problem with your argument here, you see, smoking *anything* is bad for you - smoke isn't good for the lungs. That doesn't make *marijuana* bad for you, just the smoking of it. Tetrahydrocanibinol doesn't hurt you in the least.
And smoking pot on a regular basis definitely decreases IQ and increases paranoia and depression.
Inconclusive, provide references.
Definitely, pot does not kill in the same sense as heroin and such, but no negative effects? Come on, get real.
Definitely not as bad as alcohol.
http://gabrielcain.com/
Thats because they dont care about school anymore, not [necessarily] because of any damage to the brain. Now you may say that not caring about school is a bad thing, but I would tell you to get your head out of your ass.
As far a marijuana goes, many studies have shown that there is no change in neurons or evidence of neuronal death, even after long term exposure to THC.
I know many people who use marijuana frequently and yet do very well in school, straight A students . . . some in the gifted-talented program (which has nothing to do with being gifted or talented, only with how well you do on tests)
If you want to find out marijuanas effect on the brain, try it for a year, smoke a joint when you would be otherwise waching TV (talk about effects on the brain), see how your life is affected. I bet it will only be for the better, less stress etc..
The Uber Nerd
That's impossible. Firstly, it would require admitting that people are capable of thinking without government assistance. That's no a popular sentiment among the people who run the public schools in America. Second, students might realize that certain illegal drugs are no worse for their health than smoking or drinking. This would lead to uncomfortable questions about why marajuana is illegal, and alcohol is sold in the grocery store. The lies are an integral part of the DARE program.
0 1 - just my two bits
Ugh. Drinking beer and smoking pot at the same time. That's one of the best ways to die of alcohol poisoning .I can think of.
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
What the hell is wrong with you people - and why are you anon - at least I'm not hiding.
- --
I'm not demonizing people that use drugs - I've used drugs. I don't have a problem with them using drugs - anyone that wants to, do to it and do your thing - as I thought I made clear was I DO have a problem that aren't responsible about it and let it take over their lives - those are called addicts. and even then, I don't care if they do that, I care about when their lack of concern for it ends uphurting others (kids not getting food, coworkers having to work harder, etc...).
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There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
Your friend can do this to you too. Keep it up and you might find youself stealing from the people who love you.
The Catholic High School in question had a heroine epedemic because people tollerated illegal drugs. They had more money than judgement. If you're smoking dope, you're dummer than dogshit.
The dead kid was, like his dad, very smart. Smart enough to look normal right up until the end. He was also rich. It kind of made him think he could do things normal people could not. He could, but heroine KILLED him.
KILLED, DEAD, INVOLUNTARY, am I getting through to you? He's not the only person I know that drugs have killed or seriouslly inhibited.
Do yourself a favor and leave the pot smoking alone. Go off to school and avoid the dope smoking minority. You don't need it, and it might do you some good to be exposed to people who think differently.
I was living in Florida when 20/20 broke the news that the CIA was discovered holding the lease on a Key West wearhouse that had mucho cocaine stored inside. This was about 6 years ago.
Many years later the San jose Mercury news broken an invesigative story on the web where they had Los Angeles drug dealers swearing the CI provided their weapons. This story was up for about 2 weeks and then vanished totally, with no explaination.
It astounds me how effectively our government plays on the short memory and attentio nspans of its citizens.
Its commonly undersootd in sotuhern florida that the "war on Drugs" was a turf war by rthe CIA to keep out competition. How can the government fight what the government creates?
The OMLY thing that works is REAL education. Not scare stories, not commandments, but explaiantions about the good and bad drugs do and how to avoid getting hurt.
As a relevent side note, alcholism and binge drinking is extremely low in Jewish circles. Why? Because from about age 8 up most Jews are introduced to alchol through wine at passover and taught by their parents over time how to handle it. Its all about skills folks, and if you keep your kids from learning proper drug use skills they will hurt themselevs abusing them, sooner or later.
sure, I don't need a brain to have good judgement.
Okay, so the US Government, somehow pulls a miracle off and totally stops drugs from coming into the country, one less thing to worry about right? Wrong, for the bigger picture you have to ask yourself the MAIN reason they don't want drugs in this country, and it has to do with a person's right to kill/harm themself...Both political parties have this crazy notion that people should not be allowed to harm themselves, not by smoking, not by drinking, not by eating the wrong things, hell, if thinking caused cancer it would be somewhere on the list of things they'd like to make illegal to protect life. It makes me sick, if I can die for the war pigs whenever they decide to stick their nose in some other country's business (*cough*Vietnam*cough) then I should sure as shit be able to take my own life, be it quick, slow, painless, painful...and I shouldn't have to ask permission or fill out any forms to do so either. Hobo
-HobophobE
-HobophobE
Nothing laughs forever.
That is idiotic. I smoked dope every day for a semester once and received a 3.8 GPA for the semester. This included A's in Graph Theory, Real Analysis (Highest Undergrad grade), and Topology (Only Undergrad to make it through). I also scored 790's on the GRE analytic and quatitative tests (same scale as the SAT) the morning after getting blitzed off a joint. I had a dealer who was a friend, and we often smoked together. I quit after weed got hard to find, and suffered no withdrawal symptoms.
I have many intelligent friends involved in research with high GPAs who smoke dope. It is fun, and unlike EtOH, will not shrink your brain or kill your liver. Every year exactly 0 people die of a THC overdose. Compare that to any legal drug on the market, including aspirin.
Perhaps one day you will be able to think critically, until then, I suggest you take a few courses in statistics.
And it's the same thing with 'murder and intimidation'. Hey, idiot. Those aren't part of the 'drug trade'. Those are part of the 'lucrative illegal things trade'. Drugs, at the moment, fall under 'lucrative illegal things'. This is obvious to anyone with half a brain. I hate to be so insulting, but you haven't apparently thought this though at all. I would feel worse except you call the guy you were replying to a 'loser'.
Next you're going to claim that solictiting prositution causes murder, or blackmail causes murder. It's money+illegal activity that causes the violence, plain and simply.
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
First things first, there is no such thing as casually medicating yourself with illegal drugs. You never know what your really have, and always run the risk of being exposed to something far more serious than you bargained for.
This is hardly a reason to keep marijuana illegal: Legalization would allow for the FDA or some other organization (maybe even a private one) to regulate production and enforce labelling and purity laws.
Smoking dope is just as bad for you or worse than smoking tobacco as far as your heart and lungs care.
On a puff-for-puff comparison, you may be right. But tobacco smokers tend to take a few more puffs than pot smokers...
Think it through, do you really want Joe Camel selling dope to your kids? I don't, but that's what you would get if you decriminalized "soft" drugs.
Why? I didn't have easy access to alcohol until I went to college, an environment with no real adult supervision and 21-year-olds willing to buy for me. Prior to that, it was no more available to me than marijuana. If marijuana is legalized but sales to minors are restricted in the way that alcohol sales already are, why would this availability necessarily change?
People who perpetuate this attitude to sell you shit are dispicable.
I agree. However, nobody has ever tried to convince me of this to sell me pot. On the other hand, the alcohol industry spends millions of dollars every year on advertising designed to convince me of this. Why aren't you complaining about them?
DARE's old slogan: DARE TO KEep kids off DRUGS (Dare toke drugs) :P
*tap tap tap* this thing on?
I was complaining about them, but it's a little off topic. Liquor adverts are awful, and the social damage is real. I imagine they would get in on the bussiness if they could. Selling "good times" is their specialty, and they are good at it. That's the problem. They will figure out a way to package this shit so you can smoke it all day. The greater the volume the greater the profits, right?
Religion is the opium for the masses? Nonsense, legalized marijuanna (as well as opium) will be the opium for the masses, as Vodka was to the people of the former USSR.
If you want to get people naked, all you need is a seed couple or two. Sure, a few drinks might help, but it's far more helpful to have a few people take their clothes off casually, as if nothing could be more natural. 17? wow! That must have been something else.
People keep saying "alcohol is worse than marijuana, and yet it's legal and marijuana isn't".
Isn't the reason obvious? Alcohol is legal today because it's always been legal. When they tried to make it illegal, look what happened: it simply didn't work. The alcohol genie is out of the bottle. They can tighten DUI laws, they can get really tough on underage drinking, but practically speaking they cannot make alcohol illegal because it just wouldn't work.
On the other hand, keeping marijuana illegal does reduce the use of marijuana in the population. If you don't believe this, you're fooling yourself. Why do you think tobacco is used so much more than marijuana? It's infinitely easier to acquire and smoke tobacco than marijuana. If marijuana was legal, a lot more people would probably use it.
I'm not passing judgement on alcohol, tobacco, or marijuana here. I'm just saying that the reasoning "marijuana should be legal because alcohol is legal" will never work on the people upstairs. They'd make alcohol illegal if they though it would work.
-- Will quantum computers run imaginary-time operating systems?
The subject says it all... :)
Speaking as junkie and alchoholic gone into retirement, the only benefit of the DARE program I can specifically cite (having read the RTI, Harvard, and several other studies) is that my dealer in pharmaceutical narcotics for many years had 3 different DARE bumperstickers and a PBA sticker on his '67 microbus and every time he got pulled over (usually picking up product in a high crime area) he'd get fatherly cautions about that side of town. I attended one of the top twenty public high schools in the nation, #1 in my state, and had one of the few operational BBSs in public ed. at the time which introduced me another time module. "Stuff to do when you're not working your ass off, playing bridge, playing hockey, or getting high." was as far as I'd matured until then. I've though over the years that more independant study and goal definition would have served most of the people with fringe socialization skills who turned to drugs (myself incuded) because by hook or by crook we were taking direct action to stop being ourselves for a little while while recieving no model of how to achieve change through personal endevour. In reflection, DARE most served me by insuring a steady flow of Vicodin and Percoset while I was writing my collegiate senior thesis. I think it mentioned Lecan.
Workers of the World Unite! You have Nothing to Lose but your Chains! Oh, er, sorry. Viva Capitalism. Viva the NHL!
DARE is to drug education what Microsoft is to software. If anything, I'm being unfair to Microsoft. Though I am not a drug advocate*, I believe that a propaganda campaign based on half- truths, factual distortions and authoritarian intimidation is bound to produce unintended consequences. Every reputable study I have seen has borne out my intuition.
I believe that we have a responsibility to educate children about drugs, but that's not the real mission of DARE.
* However, I am adamantly opposed to the drug war, as it is completely illogical and immoral.
I'm no druggy, in fact i have yet to drink a beer or even have a drag of a cigaret. But it wasnt dare that has kept me clean. I was more that i just flat out have no desire to do these things. Ive seen friends get their lives messed up from doin that crap. Ive hear excuses about how people were drunk of high when in fact it is no excuse. I personaly think it is much more fun to be lucid and choose what you want to do, rather than exucuses.
Having had DARE thrown at me a few times over my elementary school years, I can tell you with some certainty that DARE was a waste of my time and possibly someone else's money.
Sitting around listening to a cop tell you of the evils inherent to drugs is hardly a deterrent for someone who's really going to grow up and be an addict. Besides, cheap little workbooks and water bottles don't help the drug problem; caring, educating parents help the drug problem.
Health classes were better than DARE. And more fun. They taught us the different slang names for drugs. Which was cool.
My DARE guy was nice, though. Usually we asked him more about all the law-enforcement equipment he carried around with him than about the drugs he came to talk about.
OK, this post is so full of half-truths, propaganda and outright lies that it's going to take a while to sort through it all. Let's begin at the beginning...
Smoking dope is just as bad for you or worse than smoking tobacco as far as your heart and lungs care.First of all, THC has been proven to have no effects on the cardiovascular system so that's a lie. The statement about the lungs is a bit trickier, but glosses over a lot of details. Without going to much into the particulars, not only will you have to pretty much chain-smoke marijuana for the next 40 years to have comparable effects, you must also smoke it through either a pipe, a joint or a blunt. If you smoke weed through a bong or a THC vaporizer, the lung cancer risk is essentially nil.
Oh yeah, I forgot addiction.This is the dumbest argument against addiction. While it is true that marijuana is stastically proven to be slightly more addictive than marijuana, I'm going to blow a hole in that logic. Tobacco has a 99% addiction rate, about 10 times that of alcohol, 8 times that of marijuana, and it is perfectly legal! In fact, it's easier to get addicted to nicotine that crack. Based on that logic, crack should be legal and cigarettes should be illegal.
Why do so many people think that you need anything more than friends and or novel situations to have a good time?How about freedom of choice buddy! In a perfect world, your statement would be absolutely true. In fact, most would describe my usage as extremely occasional, and I can party with or without it. It's like deciding whether I want McDonalds or KFC. It's a personal choice. Who died and made you king of everyone's thoughts and feelings?
Blaming the police for drug violence is like blaming shippers for piracy.Well, when you have to pretty much shit on the constitution to get drug arrests 9 times out of 10, you actually expect people to be peaceful? NEXT!
You never know what your really have, and always run the risk of being exposed to something far more serious than you bargained for.I'd doubt you'd buy, say, cold medicine from someone you didn't know or trust. If someone violated your trust with NyQuil, they'd be out of business right? The same thing with illegal drugs. You have to take care to get stuff from people you trust. You would trust some unknown cold drug from a company you never heard of. Same thing with weed.
Drugs are a Global Industry of the worst kind!Doesn't that describe Al Capone and his bootlegging boys in the 20s? Based on that logic, we should bring back prohibition! :)
Now I'm not saying that drugs should be sold to those under 18 (that should stay illegal) or that driving under the influence of pot should be legal either. That being said, pot should be otherwise legal and subject to the same social restrictions put on tobacco and alcohol. Peace
Life takes it's toll...please have exact change.
Pot is a crime because it's obnoxious. Like I said, it's an airborn intoxicant. You can't keep it to yourself, and you might just want to share it more freely if it were legal. It's outlawed for the same reasons concealed firearms, special nuclear materials and unliscenced explosives are outlawed (think principle, not scale here). People who mess around with these things can inadvertantly harm others.
I would just like to highlight the above quote as proof that you are either a) a complete idiot, or b) an erudite troll. I suspect b).
So, Herr Troll, if someone partakes of weed in their homes, wherein lies the problem? And if you are so concerned about Big Tobacco selling marijuana, why not decriminalize it instead? I.e.: prohibit the sale, but do not persecute possession. If I grow the plant in my house, smoke it in my house, and thereafter doze off in my house, where is the crime?
Take a hike, banal scum.
- Rev....smo ke 1 fatty-bo-batty joint and itll all gO away...
====
Crudely Drawn Games
No, it's illegal because Harry Anslinger was looking for something to do with his thugs after alcohol prohibition ended. Go read some history, it's enlightening. The two main factors in the prohibition of drugs were 1) a government agency looking for a new charter and 2) racism--to wit, dope was only smoked by "wetbacks and negro jazz musicians". To justify the crusade against dope, they made a big deal about black men smoking a joint and then *daring* to look at a white woman. Claims were made that it made the underclass agressive, despite the fact that anyone familiar with Cheech & Chong knows it makes you silly & kinda stupid (and a lot less agressive than alcohol does).
DARE is bs because, as many other people have pointed out, it basically lies to kids, and when they realize they've been lied to about one thing, they don't have the maturity to realize that they weren't lied to about some of the others (like cocaine will kill you dead, even if it's the same dose you took yesterday, for reasons that have not been adequately researched; like heroin WILL mess you up badly).
And zero tolerance just teaches you that the adults want to control the world and don't give a shit about what makes sense. And puts people in jail whose only crime has been against themselves (if that).
I hear that most crimes are committed by young men between 16 and 25. Let's put them all in jail up front so they can't hurt anyone, that'd be an effective deterrent. That's the equivalent of your line of reasoning. The main reason drug use is associated with crime is because tada! drug use is defined to be a crime. Go figure.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
The web site is absolutely useless like anything on the internet without human interaction. That's the whole principle. Rob Malda would be some obscure coder out there with a "really cool idea" had it not been for his web site. I would also hazard to guess that his page has been one of the best means by which mySQL has field tested it's product in more and more environments than ever before and consequently added a new bargening chip for web hosting on the net (hit getting a good mySQL database in any cheap manner isn't easy and I have looked spending the equivelent on web hosting as I would for DSL service isn't that tempting). So you should refine your statement to say that posters who try to collectively be good at everything end up being good at nothing.
Respond to s
that would only happen if you are taking in large amounts of alcohol and then the characteristic of pot to prevent you from puking would keep that alcohol in your system.- ---------
that said, beer has very little alcohol in it per volume. when you puke from beer, your stomch is usually reacting to the volume as opposed to thinking you are poisoned.
I've had some bad times with scotch and I'm sure I would have been dead if I had been smoking pot with it. the pot wouldn't have been bad, it just would have prevented the puke replex.
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There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
About two months ago there was an interesting study published showing that if minor children were injured or killed in a car accident involving alcohol, and where the driver was old enough to be their parent or guardian, more than half the time, the person who had been using alcohol was... their driver. In other words, the odds were good that their parent or guardian was wasted. We felt that they should start an organization called Mothers Who ARE Drunk Drivers (M/WADD). Turtle
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Rotate the pod, please, HAL....
yes, I personally feel that there is nothing wrong with that. beer and pot when used responsibly in relative moderation (I sure know "moderation" isn't usually how I'd explain my beer consumption) is harmless in my opinion. if you are old enough to know better and can financially bear the weight of doing so, then go for it. if you aren't even in high school yet, then I question it since you are still developing and both of those alter enough of your hormone levels that I'd say to avoid them until after high school.- ------
I think DARE is appropriate for young kids, but at some point you are going to have to learn the lessons yourselves anyway.
my main beef with DARE is that they say that drugs are bad, and they aren't so bad, it is the consequences that come up that are directly correlated to drug use that are bad.
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There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
First off, here is the first paragraph from Chapter 20 of "Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts" by Lynn Zimmer, Ph. D, and John P. Morgan, M.D.:
Here are some of the sources used in this chapter:
Baum, D., Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure, Boston: Little Brown and Company (1996)
National Institute on Justice, "The DARE Program: A Review of Prevalence, User Satisfaction, and Effectiveness," National Institute of Justice Update, Washington, D.C.
Rosenbaum, D.P. et al., "Cops in the Classroom: A Longitudinal Evaluation of DARE," Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 31:3-31 (1994)
Every study that has examined the effectiveness of DARE has failed to show a correlation linking the program with a decrease in adolescent or adult drug use. If the purpose of the program is to get people to not use drugs, it has been a total failure. Total. TOTAL. It does not work.
DRCNet has a section dealing with DARE that is very enlightening. The Detroit News has an archived version of an anti-DARE article available here, and the American Psychological Association has a study showing DARE's lack of effectiveness here. And the Austin Chronicle has an article about how that city's police department dropped DARE due to its costliness and ineffectiveness.
- Rev.You had me up till that last one, 'cos everything you say applies exactly the same to any other drug, except the ones that are really addictive and unpredictably dangerous (i.e. heroin and cocaine and meth).
The only reason LSD or pot are significant risks to a properly educated person is because the State will can your ass if they catch you doing them.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Firstly I really dislike the idea that government is a bad thing. Before the government people really had shitty lives. Check out life under the articles of confederation and see what happens when you basically have an ineffective government. The price we pay for having a good life is good enough for me. Without the government Microsoft would be screwing people left and right, we would be buying our gass from Standard Oil and probably our powre system too. All the progress in environmental legislation (which I don't really personally care for extensively but other people do) wouldn't be there. Germany would have mopped the floor with us in what would have been a nice little war and we would be speaking German on this forum. Secondly the use of drugs was a big social problem in America before laws were passed making them harder and harder to reliably get. Say what you will but since I havn't heard a peep about where anyone could reliably get drugs anywhere in America I would hazard a guess that most people wouldn't risk it (well except the coding commandos who are above the law on slashdot). Stings are common and people constantly are getting arrested. Kind of like the purges of the Stallinist era or senator Joseph McCarthy and his trials. Thirdly there is not ever and I mean *EVER* going to be a return to a laize-fair government that prevents people from being involved in social affairs. I must reiterate this extensively. THe government is founded on the desires of people from all areas and not the little enterprising folks who have everything handed to them on a silver platter and who have the seemingly endless ability to fully think of themselves as experts for humanity. People are always not going to like wehat they see and as consequence of this will always find people and pay them to do their bidding. Drugs are not different. Obviously someone got tired of people having shitty lives getting stoned and eventually wasting away on drugs so that they were outlawed. Many, many people died before us in our limited lives and they made mistakes. It even seems that some of these people couldn't do anything to stop that degredation and died anyway. If the United States ever elects a complete *ASS* like Nader or McRenolds or Browne I will personally join some nation like China and wait for the right time to attack with them because nations who let themselves spend all their time freeing their citizens from any cares in the world usually fall flat in terms of power (most of Western Europe has this problem and at the rise of another Hitler most of Europe will fall probably withoug much of a fight if the US dosn't get involved). What is the point of this? Well to explain away some of the ideas on your post. To get back to the problems of my subject line there is a destinct difference between cigs/alchol and pot. Pot has psychoactive elements which are *EXPONENTIALLY* more fierce than anything outside of things like vallium of prozac. These have been documented before by the men/women who came before us and who died before we were born. They knew the score and tried to pass it down to future generations. But people being mortal usually don't bother to remember more than 10 years (or less) in the past and generally don't care. Obviously the entire case against drugs isn't totally a media generated cabal created by men in smoke filled rooms because you can't influence everyone to be fooled by something so completely even if it's expertely presented. Slashdot must be full of a bunch of people who are extremely drug resistant that is obviously blatant. I guess you guys must have a really high LD 50 level for your genetic set than most people. Why don't get get some addicts to but to rest some of the little facts of the drug culture. I don't think people who had their lives trashed by human defense reactions to drugs would be too happy with some of these postings. But then again history is written by the victors and so I guess you can't talk to that dead guy who died off crack or the guy who ruined his life and lost his job and his ability to be productivew over pot no do you?
Respond to s
Dare to keep cops off of Doughnuts. When I was in the Army and that Bitch Nancy Reagan started telling kids just say No I thought to myself .I bet the government does control the drugs and this is how they advertise .I have always felt that the war on drugs was propaganda.
Mere words to keep people interested and the prices high,and no I do not use drugs personally
I think the entire approach to DARE is a bit skewed, as drugs are a normal part of most people's lives. Without drugs, I honestly wouldn't be alive today.
If you've just had surgery, you get painkillers. And not weak pain killers. Hardcore painkillers. This is a good drug, as it prevents suffering. However, taken in the absence of pain, you become an addict, and must be prosecuted.
Having a beer with your friends after work is a-ok, as long as you arent inebriated for driving or operating heavy machinery. However, you must be of proper age for this, as children aren't responsible enough to poison themselves.
But then you look at something like pot, and many issues come up. I know plenty of people who smoke marijuana on a regular basis. These people have excellent jobs(which don't drug test), and live productive lives. They're taxpaying Americans. They are the future middle-aged Americans, many of whom still smoke marijuana as it is.
But marijuana is a drug and these people are criminals, although this may be hard to accept.
If DARE focused on exposing children to the TRUTH behind drugs, instead of the propaganda campaign of fear, then maybe DARE would be more effective.
-agent oranje
-agent oranje.
Sure guns are all bad and we should never hurt anyone right? Yeah well how many times has a group convinced that peace would solve problems ever prevailed over aggressors when they were determined enough? Never in any substantial sense. What marajuana does is deceive you that good times are had in a inatimate object and not within the capacity of your own mind. It makes you think that your mind is something you can move out of and take in your suitcase somewhere and be seperate from. Living in a fantasy is perhaps the most damaging idea of all. Until you can recreate any reality that the drug can inside your skull anytime you want you are lost and never will find your way home.
Respond to s
sorry for screaming but it has to be said, but after all we are having a discussion on the DARE program and it's use of power and the like so I guess I can add my opinion Do i really think that any of these worthelss parties have a ghost of a change of making American into their vision? No! Why is that? Well ever since we had situations like that which was in the United States in the 19th century where men were able to almost rule the government and get whatever they wanted from the people without the government interveining at all and many people had much suffering. These candiates are using stupid feel good issues that many hippies like to believe. People think that drugs are cool and will make them supermen without any problem at all. Drugs will never totally be legalized, these candiates will never win and on top of that there is no chance that anything will change in a ladical manner and that is what is good about life. Not having to accomodiate radical views which make life uncomfortable and which many people are lead in a hysterical, drug induced manner and feel that their castles in the sky will suddently appear along with Atlantis and such.
Respond to s
And exactly what, aside from rumor and government scare mongering, do you have to base this claim on?
The only credible accounts of "flashbacks" are akin to the same phenomenon among soldiers: if you have an extremely intense experience, particularly if it was negative, you may find yourself reliving it when something in the environment triggers your memory.
However, any educated tripper is going to make sure their set and setting are safe, as Dr. Leary stressed for decades. That minimizes your chances for a bad trip and hence your chances of any kind of flashback. As someone who has tripped a LOT (though not at high dosages) in the past, I can say I have never had a flashback, and only one person I knew in the scene ever claimed to have had a flashback, and her experience was a positive one (a very intense memory of a very loving moment in her life).
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Well, that is fine by me. At least Marijuana and Opium are more safe than either alcohol or religion.
"Drug related crime" is a misnomer, "prohibition related crime" is the more accurate and correct phrase.
> First things first, there is no such thing as casually medicating yourself with illegal drugs. You never know what your really have, and always run the risk of being exposed to something far more serious than you bargained for.
That's a result of it being illegal.
> Smoking dope is just as bad for you or worse than smoking tobacco as far as your heart and lungs care.
I believe this is somewhat debatable, but in any case, smoking tobacco is physically addictive while smoking marijuana is not.
Also, there are other ways of consuming marijuana other than smoking it.
> People smoking dope can be just as judgement impared as drunks.
This is also debatable.
> Not addictive as physical add it's an airborn intoxicant! You drinking a beer in a bar won't make me drunk. You smoking dope in a public place effects veryone around you.
That's what "No Smoking" signs are for.
> The problem is neither a medical nor law enforcement, it's an attitude problem. Why do so many people think that you need anything more than friends and or novel situations to have a good time? It's crap!
Not everyone is like you. Some people enjoy smoking/consuming marijuana. Nobody's saying people should be encouraged to smoke marijuana. People should have the right to choose.
In any case, are you also saying that cigarretes and alcohol should be illegal?
> Blaming the police for drug violence is like blaming shippers for piracy. You might as well blame law enforcement for rape, murder, arson and every other illegal activity.
Your analogies do not seem to make any sense. The reason why "drug violence" exists is because it's illegal. Have you ever heard of "cigarrete violence" or "alcohol violence", recently in the United States?
I can just see Hippie Fundamentalists running around crucifying people because they don't own a bong.
I'm kidding, people.
--
Dyolf Knip
Once we were in, they hinted that we should exagerate the story we told a bit. I went once, and the kids were awed by what we said, but I don't think they believed our BS.
They stuck me in an institution, said it was the only solution, to...protect me from the enemy, myself
i don't need friends or novel situations to have a good time. I just need to have a good time.
your assumption that everyone has a good time the same way is the fault in your argument.
How can I tell my kids not to smoke pot or snort coke? They're gonna tell me, "how harmful can it be, just look where it got the President." Clinton, Gore or Bush are leading the war on drugs? Maybe we should just put Robert Downey Jr. or Willie Nelson in charge of it instead.
> Most drug use is related to other crime, and most criminals are also drug users. It's an attitude problem, "I'm going to have a good time at your expense." Woohoo! fun loving criminals. If you don't think that the decline in US crime rates was related to putting crimals in jail, just wait until the criminals get back out.
Saying "most criminals are also drug users" is a very generalized statement. But let's say it is true. Doesn't it make sense to you that someone who, for instance, robs a store, isn't going to care whether or not Uncle Sam wants him to be smoking pot or not? Are you suggesting that illegalizing drugs stops people from robbing stores?
> Bribery, intimidation and murder will go on with or without this product to fight over, but they are less likely to happen among people who are gainfully employed.
Like I said before, this is all a result of drugs being illegal. Drugs don't cause people to commit (other) crimes. Making drugs illegal causes them to be associated with other crimes.
> Education and enforcement are the answers. Education first.
Best to educate with rational arguments, though.
I feel DARE has its purpose to inform on smoking tabacco, the use of cocaine, the use of heroin, and maybe info on alcahol. The rest is a bunch of bullshit government propaganda that is not based in fact and should not be spewed to children.
Damn, I wish I had some moderator points right now.
Society's approach to chemicals is insane to say the least. The variant at my college was the counseling center throwing Zoloft at anyone who asked for drugs subsequent to a classmate of mine committing suicide by ODing on Zoloft. Irresponsible much?
My particular circle of friends at college ranged from those who never did any drugs whatsoever (including alcohol and tobacco, possibly including caffeine) for religious/moral or medical reasons, all the way to the guy who decided one day to take the shrooms he somehow forgot he had stashed in his desk. The users didn't do anything beyond politely asking if someone wished to partake with them, the non-users didn't preach about the evils of drugs, keys were taken away as appropriate, people followed the rules of whatever house they were in at the time, and it all worked just fine.
Legal adults ought to have the opportunity to make up their own damn minds about what they choose to ingest. They should also deal with the consequences should they harm someone else while under the influence. I'd also rather see impairment testing for drivers etc. than straight BAC and such -- I don't care if a driver is imparied from alcohol, illegal drugs, legal medication or lack of sleep. If said driver is impaired, said driver has no business behind a wheel.
Why are these things so difficult to comprehend?
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
Lots of GOOD programmers are high off their ass when they write code. Even better artists have claimed that the drug itself brings them the 'skill' they need (although, i doubt this). If you need proof, just do a search for 'rasterman', 'levellord', or look at the hostnames for gnu.org. Blizzard software thanks "Proposition 212" and "420" in the credits for "Diablo".
... now, that thing tolerance, might have soemthing to do with it? Hrm. (marijuana smokers|alcohol drinkers) who have been doign it moderately for 20 years need to (smoke|drink) more than people doing it for less?
Of course programmers don't have to think at all.
Pot certainly fucks with your imagination, i'll give you that, but I've rarely found it to be bad, only in situations where I"ve mixed alcohol with it, to be specific. (don't do that much heh)
It messes with your head directly and lasts much longer than boozing.
Alcohol must mess with your bowels then - I've had good friends who are normally continent shit and piss their pants like they were 2, all while puking their brains out on alcohol.
Hm. Seen a few budsmokers fall asleep. Slackers! Evil!
Wait, that's after at least a (5 bowls|full rack)
Seriously, anyone reading this arguemnt on slashdot this far and doesn't have enough proof ALREADY that they should at least research the TONS and TONS of evidence against the governments' claims are:
1) complete morons
2) #1
This country DOES NOT and HAS NEVER had a drug problem.
This country has a government problem!
+DARE +school +ineffective
The following is the first few hits off Google using those search terms. I got 6,750 hits from them. I think your story is in there somewhere.The evidence points in one direction, and nobody on either side of "DRUGWARS" should have any interest in arguing it.
ABCNEWS.com : Study Finds D.A.R.E. Ineffective
Several Studies Suggest DARE Programs Ineffective
Project DARE Ineffective 10 Years Later!
Falcon's Cry: DARE found ineffective
Herald - Ineffective D.A.R.E. prevention program should be replaced
DARE's clout smothers other drug programs
Here's a quote from the article,"According to a Detroit News analysis of 33 Metro area school districts, there is no difference between teen drug and alcohol use in districts that offered DARE and in districts that did not. DARE is used in 70 of the 88 Metro districts."
I grabbed that one because it's from this year.
Do you get it now? There is no good news about DARE outside of the press releases from the people on the payroll.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Ok, this has probably been posted, but I ran a sort of Anti-DARE case(well, actually, Student Problem Solving, but we bashed dare for much of the harms) last year, and there was a piece of evidence that said the following: Someone had conducted a study of students in dare, and had discovered, using a 10[maybe 20? can't recall] year follow up study to a class of students who had attended DARE(as well as a control class of students who hadn't attended DARE), and found that those who had taken DARE in school were no less likely to have used drugs, and indeed most of the former students noted that DARE hadn't influenced their behaviour in the least. Additionally, the conductor of the study found slightly lower average self esteem among those who had participated in DARE compared with those who had not. As for personal experiences on the matter, I know INCREDIBLY smart people who smoke, use drugs and alcohol, will admit the disadvantages, and have been taught endlessly about how evil drugs and how how they will turn you into a baby eating hippy monster from hell, but don't care. It's their personal choice, and though they know the dangers, they choose it nonetheless. Making them sit through 300 more hours of DARE will not change anything. Just my thoughts on the matter, Alex Magidow
My experience with DARE was much more like the Harvard Study. The officer came in and told us less about the pharmacological effects of the drugs than about drug culture and -- most importantly -- pointing out that a lot of people don't do drugs, we don't need to get sucked in by peer pressure, and our friends probably won't hate us if we pass the bogart, as it means more for them.
Sure, later on the image of that seedy kid started to arise in the popular media saying "hey little girl, want to try some POT? Come on..." Which I'll agree is not the best way to protray use.
THESIS: A lot of readers today have attacked the need for DARE at all. But look at it this way: Our current legal and political system is an advisarial one. Say we have an armed robbery with mitigating circumstances. The prosecution argues for life imprisonment, the defense argues to let him go free, the two face off and the criminal winds up serving 5-10. Justice is served. It might not be the best system, but it IS the sysem for now.
On one hand, kids get a lot pressure from the media et al to do drugs. My little brother (14) just started smoking pot because enimem told him to. If that's the only message kids were getting, that's what they'd listen to. Thus, we have Officer Joe come in and take the hard line against drug use.
But if the message becomes an absurdity (pot kills), it's effectiveness is obviously hindered.
So there very well may be a place for DARE within our system, and they might want to take the "hard line" against drugs. Spreading untruths, however, is counterproductive.
Disclaimer: Obviously this argument does not counter the libritarian argument. I have no qualms with the libritarian utopia. But it would mean a complete change in legal and political convention in this country. Might be good, sure, but it would have to be COMPLETE to be effective. Pulling out this one issue out of context and applying the same arguments within the current system doesn't work. Kudos for having a coherent world view, though.
-- r . m o s q u i t o --
First of all, let me say that except for caffeine and the occasional (once a year, at most) alcoholic beverage, I do not and never have "done drugs", of any kind. Now let me explain some things.
I went through DARE (in elemenary or middle school, I forget which) and one of those "health" classes in high school, and they had absolutely no impact on my behavior. Looking back on this "education", I am disgusted at the blatant misinformation that was distributed. Part of this was simply ignorance; clueless teachers with 20-year old textbooks. But as someone who knows more than the average bear of the scienific/medical facts about addiction, it's quite obvious that this "education" was merely another fallicy produced by the so-called war on drugs.
Not everyone who "does drugs" will become addicted. It has less to do with the type of drug or frequency of use than it has to do with your family history. Except for some of the most addictive substances, such as nicotine, the predisposition to addiction is determined by your genetic makeup. On a larger scale, your ethnic heritage and your ancestors' accumlated resistance to these substances comes into play. On a smaller scale, look at your family tree. If one parent is an addict, there is a 50% that the genetic predispoition to addiction will be passed from parent to child.
However, DARE and similar "health" programs paint a picture where you partake of the substance once, start craving the drug more and more, and than all of a sudden you "cross the line" and become an addict. Your children are being lied to, just as you were. Yes, the regular intake certain substances can have a negative impact on your life, especially if you are an addict, but the information being distributed by the government regarding this topic is mere fantasy. It's propaganda, pure and simple.
I could go on for another few pages about why the government does this, but I won't. I'll leave you with a quote from George Clinton: "There's more money in pretending to stop it than selling it."
Vote Libertarian.
---------///----------
All generalizations are false.
--
I like to watch.
> Get this: Drug sales are big global business of the slimiest kind! There's no quality assurance of any kind. Ever read Ralph Nader's "Unsafe in any Quantity"? No you didn't because you can't sue the bastard that burns you.
Get it through your thick skull. Lack of quality assurance and association with crime in the illegal drug trade, is a result of the drug trade being illegal.
> So the DARE people are right. Smoking that joint might not kill you, but it might just be your ticket to utter looserdom. How do you know it's not full of heroine?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but heroine is a lot more expensive than marijuana, so it doesn't seem to make sense that this would happen. I don't know though.
I once saw a police officer rip a DARE shirt off of a kid on the street because the kid was smoking while wearing it. It was one of the coolest things i have ever seen. HyperLogi
First of all, thinking back, I remember the DARE program being a total failure in our middle school. It was funny when the police officer would ask questions about the different drugs and the students correctly answering them (and being congradulated for their knowledge) were the biggest drug users in the school.
The messages that their movies showed were debuffed by the students that were using drugs at the time. As for the curious students, they tried drugs anyway (and suprisingly, most of them were part of the DARE team).
Unfortunately, I can't think of a universal solution to this problem but I can share a personal experience that touched home for me. Sometime when I was about 10 (a age where lasting impressions are easily made), I was introduced to one of my cousins. As far as I knew, the guy had been an honor student in college and had mixed alcohol and drugs and messed up his brain. He was now around thirty, and socially incompetant. He could barely walk or even say his own name. After 30 seconds of conversation my reaction would be to get away and avoid this person. I must have seen this person and heard his story at least ten times and the image stuck. At that age I made the decision to avoid drugs at all costs. As for alcohol, my parents had an open policy on alcohol since I was 5 and I had time to safely test my limits. And for smoking, I constantly heard stories of family members that died at 30-40 from smoking.
What was important was that drug safety was taught at home by using REAL examples. I had friends who also told me the truth on what drugs were good and bad so I could easily get evidence against the DARE program. Constanlty being exposed to and reminded of real people with drug problems that were that close to home made a lasting impression. Having my parents as a trustworthy source as well (one went to NYU, his quote: "you got high walking through the dorms") beat any sad attempt made by the DARE program.
Basically, any program that believes that it can come to teens of 14-16, lie to them about drugs and magically change their views despite contradictions from friends is bound to fail.
-Just my two YIP's....I took the DARE program in elemantary school. The one thing the class did was give me an overwhelming desire to get the real facts on drugs.(Through experimentation of course.) Less than half of what the DARE officers said was true, I have yet to meet a "Drug Pusher", trying to sell anyone marijuana. It usually the crack dealers trying to sell stuff to minors. And that is usually because getting a job isnt as profitable as selling crack to kids. Hey it's like 20$ a "rock", sell 10-20 rocks in a day thats more than you would ever make in a day at the local McDonald$.
Now DARE should really try to do something different than terrorize "the children", and turn them into little informants for the FBI. My step-brother, 10yrs. old, swears on the DARE Manual that I will turn into a heroin junky if I come home from work and throw back a brew. I asked him where he got that ludicrous idea from..."The DARE ossifer" was the reply. Okay, how is ONE beer going to turn me into a Junky? For that matter how would one joint turn me into a junky? Hell, if I smoke pot I could end up president of the united states one day.... and have hemp seed beer provided for me on Airforce one.... Uh oh, did I expose a double standard? Oh wait, no use in stating the obvious...
Sorry to restate what dozens have said already, but why is DARE on a news for nerds board? I could possibly understand if this was something directly concerning marijuana, because hey, everyone knows nerds do marijuauna. But this post is quite obviously talking about drinking.
It bothers me slightly that things like this get posted when my articles on 3D monitors and Smart and Friendly liquidating got rejected.
Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net
I'm just guessing, but those of you who slept through the class, and STILL didn't do drugs were taught by mommy and daddy not to do drugs right? Starting to see the light? (sarcastic, but serious) In case not, let me spell it out. I-t-'s t-h-e p-a-r-e-n-t-'s j-o-b t-o t-e-a-c-h t-h-i-s!
amazing. now if only the rest of society would figure this out, and take responsibility for that biological spill they created by having unprotected sex...
Fish
...instead of letting your local propaganda machine misinform them. My boy is in 5th grade this year, and wastes (his opinion) a day a week with DARE instead of real schoolwork. I vetted the material they supplied (pretty poor, IMNSHO), and then we sat down and I gave him the straight word on drugs both legal and illegal.
I suspect most of the DARE instructors would have trouble understanding which substances mediate dopamine vs. serotonin uptake (and that THC interacts with a totally different system), but my boy knows. He also knows something of the physiology and psychology of addiction vs. habituation, and the difference between casual use and abuse. He knows some of the actual, vs. propagandized, effects (both good and ill) of different drugs on the mind and body. Most important, he has a good idea of what's *really* wrong with unlawful drugs -- that some idiots thinks drugs are worth shooting people over. He also knows that -- and that the man would take him away from me for my heinous crime -- is the *only* reason I don't toke anymore.
Think a 5th grader can't really grasp all this? Then you haven't tried. Just be honest, and keep the science at a reason level, and a grade school kid *can* assimilate the facts and make some intelligent, independent conclusions about drugs and their use.
No, DARE doesn't work, but the truth will. Teach your children well.
'Scuse me while I kiss the sky,
Malaclypse
*** Vote Libertarian -- Harry Browne For President ***
Well,
I've never done drugs, i probably never will. (well, except for an occasional drink, dayquil, and the necessary midol)
And i don't know if i would have even if i hadn't had DARE in sixth grade. But i know i did learn alot.
If nothing else, it strengthened my aversion to such things (i've always kinda been a pain-in-the-ass goodie-two-shoes, i'll admit it) But, who knows? I might have been curious and tried some stuff if i hadn't heard different things from Officer Ashley.
(i knew one kid who was told by his friends that "huffing" or "whippets" weren't really like doing drugs and couldn't hurt him, maybe he would have known better if he'd paid attention in his own DARE class- i dunno)
I guess my point is- maybe it's true for the most part that some kids are going to do drugs anyway and some kids aren't going to anyway and the program doesn't make a difference.
HOWEVER, I BELIEVE THAT IF IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE TO EVEN ONE KID OUT OF THE MILLIONS IN THIS COUNTRY EACH YEAR, IT'S WORTH IT until there is a more effective way.
If one more life is saved, if one person learns something to help keep themselves, a friend, or a family member safe- it's worth all those who sat there bored to death and ended up a totally addict by the age of 18.
But, that's just my opinion- what do i know?
I and all my friends took D.A.R.E in fifth grade. Most of the time I didnt know what they were talking about when it came to drugs. Now I am in eleventh grade and all of my friends do drugs or have done them. I am one of the few that has never done drugs, although I still dont remember anything I was taught in fifth grade.
Teenagers are some of the most emotional of people, and very dumb too. They are very dumb, and rediculous emotional people. They are all insecure, especially the girls, so they do some drugs to feel cool and better. That's all there is to it.
The only reason I dont do drugs is because I see how pathetic all my friends are. I consider my drug-freeness my trophy, and I'm proud of it.
You really have no clue, do you. Getting caught for possesion of marijuana will, on one's first offense, lead to probation, for most of the "hard" drugs, first offens possesion only lead to an extended term of probation, and drug counseling w/ a liberal dose of community service thrown in for good measure. Even on subsequent arrests, unless one is carrying a large quantity, one is generally sent to jail, not prison. There is a world of difference between jail and prison.
I only know one person that has ever failed DARE. I know a few more people that have done drugs than that. The guy who started DARE even said that is doesn't work. Therefore, it doesn't work.
I dunno maybe we're afraid of being judged by our defecation
I rember the old days of dare, i would sit there in class with all my buddies laughing it up. Once they started talkin about how easy it was for us to get our hands on stuph, what kinds of substitutions we could use, and what it would do to us, our interests were peeked. it wasn't long until we started experimenting with cigarettes, marajuana, nitrous oxide (from whipped cream), a little bit of coke, and lots of alcohol. i'm pretty sure if it wasn't for dare, we would'v been too scared to do it on our own. i would liek to thank dare for my experimentation (or avid use) all through high school.
tap 2 blue, I counter that
many things in your everyday life release dopamine and endorphins.. chocolate, chili peppers, cold showers and sex ALL are "gateway drugs" under this theory because they release chemicals in your brain that make you "feel good"
Very good insights. I won't include cold showers, but a hot bath might be one. My family, on my father's side (which my sister and I inherited, as did my son as well), have naturally high levels of endorphins, so we tend not to feel non-pinprick pain and have slightly higher resistance levels to these drugs, although my sister does smoke (started early, of course).
Will in Seattle
In fact, the DARE program has such a poor track record that at my school Distrct in Spokane, WA (a HUGE Methamphetamine town), has completely scrapped the DARE program. It has been replaced by something whose name I can't remember, and seems to focus more on Tabacco than anything.
DARE has a really poor track record, but it isn't because of the content it presents really. The people who use drugs have parents who either are one of two things:
- Too Protective. This prompts the child to want to rebel and try new things.
- Simply don't care. If the parent doesn't really pay enough attention to the child when they are young, and let the television raise the kid, then they won't be able to be a parent later in life, when the child can be, and needs to be molded so they can realize that those activities are really just a dead end.
As young adults, we strive to find our place in the world away from our parents, but too often the parents give too much control to the child over their life, and other times not enough. Both these choices cause the child to experiment with drugs and alcohol (not a bad thing). Unfortunately, society has made this behavior acceptable. In the US the Welfare system considers a Chemical Addiction a disablity that allows people ot collect welfare. Nice to know the government will fund a drug habit, isn't it?Anyway, I've ranted enough. In short, DARE doesn't work simply because our Society has made those alternative behaviors more acceptable, and until that society creates good Parents, things won't get better.
foxxtrot
-- this
With the possible exception of medicinal marijuana, you dont really need drugs at all. I find life stressful enough without having to resort to recreational drug use. and relaxing effect of using drugs is directly offset by the stresses involved in using them and the consequences of your actions.
plus i have watched drug use destroy the rave scene in the pittsburgh-cleveland area, and it pisses me off.
You've probably seen the T-shirt "D.A.R.E. - I turned in my parents and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt"? Orange County CA cops busted a local hemp store for selling them, and confiscated all their shirts, claiming it was a trademark violation. So much for Supreme Court cases on parody and First Amendment protection.
Here's a Northernlights search URL for "Parents Against D.A.R.E., a parents group opposing this scam.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Being almost 21 I had to go through the whole dare program in elementary school. Unfortunately I did not pass the dare program because I thought it was a waste of time and didn't do an essay that they required of us. However, all of the people from my class that I have spoken to (and did pass the dare course) have done drugs, and several of them. They considered the class to be more of a shopping spree where they could learn which drugs were the ones that matched thier personality best. The interesting thing is that I am the only one from my class who did not pass the dare course and the only one I know of to be completely clean.
Nothing to see here, move along.
- A.P.
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* CmdrTaco is an idiot.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
I am the run on king
lose != loose
>> Take a look at the gunslinger series by Steven King.
Fiction. Just remember, they are fiction. If you had a reliable supply of pure heroin you could know exactly what dosage to take, eliminating the possibility of an overdose. Much of the "darkening lesions" are caused by irritations and infections from impurities in the drug, dirty needles and so on. The main problem you would have long term with pure drug would be finding usable injection sites. If your supply was steady enough, you might no need to inject, smoking would probably be enough to get you by. The original poster was correct - the main reason most junkies are in such bad shape is because the drug is illegal and the tools needed to inject it are too. Since it is illegal it is impure, difficult and dangerous to get and hard to use.
I'm not saying someone addicted with a steady supply of pure drug would live a good life, just that they could live an OK one.
the govt uses to soak up the billions in tax-payers dollars they spend on the 'Drug War'. Check Here http://www.drcnet.org/DARE/
Dude, it makes you stupid. That's why they call it dope. It messes with your head directly and lasts much longer than boozing.
Proportionally, there are more people who are straight and stupid than are stoners and stupid. This has been my personal experience, anyway.
Pot is a crime because it's obnoxious. Like I said, it's an airborn intoxicant. You can't keep it to yourself, and you might just want to share it more freely if it were legal.
Whilst in might be if smoked like tobacco. However it isn't airborn when made into a tea, placed in a food (either as hemp flowers or as an oil), chewed, etc. etc. Also less likely to be an issue of passive smoking if some kind of "bong" is used.
The two main factors in the prohibition of drugs were 1) a government agency looking for a new charter and 2) racism--to wit, dope was only smoked by "wetbacks and negro jazz musicians". To justify the crusade against dope, they made a big deal about black men smoking a joint and then *daring* to look at a white woman. Claims were made that it made the underclass agressive, despite the fact that anyone familiar with Cheech & Chong knows it makes you silly & kinda stupid (and a lot less agressive than alcohol does).
Another factor apparently involved was the Du Pont company wanting to market synthetic rope, getting rid of hemp rope helped them rather a lot...
Why is alcohol not outlawed?
This was tried, back in the 1920's in the USA. The only difference is now the dealers go for heavier weapons than Tommy guns.
Smoking marijuana is certainly not as harmful and must less likely to cause cancer than tobacco.Depends how much of the cancer risk is caused by the smoke from dried plant material, regardless of any drugs it might contain. It would probably be difficult to get funding to compare the effects on smoking different types of dried plant.
It may be less risky simply because the typical marijuana smoker takes in less smoke than the typical cigarette smoker.
This is true as illustrated with the alcohol prohibition in the early 20th century. People were either making their own or buying from smugglers, and since you didn't know what you were getting in terms of quality, it was dangerous.
Prohibition actually made things worst in some ways, because the bootleg stuff tended to be spirits rather than wine or beer.
Along with your research you need to pick up a dictionary that tells you how to spell impairment. It's hard to take a post discussing research in brain damage and impairment seriously otherwise.
The reason why "drug violence" exists is because it's illegal. Have you ever heard of "cigarrete violence" or "alcohol violence", recently in the United States?
Around 80 years isn't that long ago, plenty of "alcohol violence" then, appears to coincide with alchohol being illegal... QED
And since there are fewer of them, they should have to do it all the time... that sort of conviction would be necessary to sway me in that direction.
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
D.A.R.E. supporters continue to write to our local newspaper complaining about Anderson discontinuing the program in the schools. Oddly enough, these appeals to the public are couched in very emotional terms, and don't present any statistics as to the efficacy of the program. As has been pointed out, critics of D.A.R.E. have been all over the program for years because it doesn't seem effective.
If they had those weapons then, they would have used them. Tommy guns were the automatic weapon of the day, after all.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
The link to the abstract is here.
Basically, it says after ten years, cigarette, alcohol, marijuana, and illicit drug use (not marijuana) atitudes were completely unaffected by dare.
Booyakka
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
if someone partakes of weed in their homes, wherein lies the problem?
well you see, since it is an obnoxious airborne intoxicant, brave police officers breaking in the door could be exposed and suffer horrifying consequences.
"I will gladly pay you today, sir, and eat up
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
But they did have this little crack habit, so they got on welfare and robbed people's houses to keep up the habit.
With all the cutbacks in welfare there are poor people who cannot get welfare, so I seriously doubt that there are many crackheads receiving welfare. As for the second half of your statement, people steal because drugs are expensive, and drugs are expensive because they are illegal.
If drugs were legal and were readily available on the free market, prices would go down to next to nothing. To prevent crime, all the the government would need to do is subsidize or give away drugs to all those who wanted them. What incentive would drug addicts have for robbing you if they could spend all their time doing drugs instead?
--
You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
D.A.R.E, and oher such programs rely heavliy on scare tactics and half-truths. Before we get any further, I'm not an advocate for legalizing drugs nor am I an avid drug user. I've researched a great deal on a subset of class III drugs known popularly as anabolic steroids. A class of drugs the AMA and JAMA have endorsed for years as incredible longevity and overall systemic health providers. Although looking through literature from DARE the false 'facts' abound. Most of the them are frightening, telling teens their penis (not testicles) will shrink irreversably. DARE is a well intentioned program with the wrong approach. Does DARE work? Sure it does. It keeps most undecided teens from using it.
My mom always said that drinking milk led to drug abuse. Go back and look at the childhoods of drug users. Think they drank milk? Of course they did!
DARE is bs because, as many other people have pointed out, it basically lies to kids, and when they realize they've been lied to about one thing...
"I will gladly pay you today, sir, and eat up
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
... for me - Dare was VERY effective. The officers seemed to really care etc. However, if say you come from an area where you were raised to distrust cops and all then you prolly wouldnt listen to them. They do have bad ass cars though.
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
I want my child educated on drugs, but not by the D.A.R.E. program. I want her to learn about tobacco and alcohol as drugs as well as other legal and illegal drugs. I want her to learn that casual responsible use of any drug, legal or not, is a personal choice that should not be taken lightly.
Here is a page from http://www.drcnet.org/
-------------------------------------------------
What's wrong with D.A.R.E.?
Over the last several years, ever-louder questions and criticisms about the merits and wisdom of D.A.R.E. have emerged. This section attempts to share those that have come to the attention of authors of this web page.
The U.S. General Accounting Office reported, "There is little evidence so far that [D.A.R.E. and other "resistance training" programs] have reduced the use of drugs by adolescents" (U.S. GAO/GGD-93-82, "Confronting the Drug Problem," page 25).
D.A.R.E.'s official response to this growing body of research is disdain for science. "Scientists tell you that bumblebees can't fly, but we know better," declared D.A.R.E. Executive Director Glenn Levant upon release of the government-sponsored report that D.A.R.E. doesn't work (USA Today, October 11, 1994). The local D.A.R.E. officers we talked to also claim that the anecdotal evidence is convincing that D.A.R.E. is working extremely well, citing the warm reception they have received by schools and parents. "Besides," they often add, "even if we are reaching only one kid, it's worth all the effort."
(It is not clear why their standard of success is so low. We would hardly declare a math curriculum successful if only one kid learned to add.)
In an editorial October 15, 1993, The Chapel Hill (North Carolina) Herald observed, "If D.A.R.E. isn't doing the job it's supposed to, we owe it to fifth- and sixth-graders to find out why."
Curiously, the web site of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the nation's preeminent anti-drug abuse agency, doesn't even mention D.A.R.E.
Many parents take issue with the emphasis on "self-esteem" in schools these days, and the notion that it can be readily "taught." Lillian Katz, Professor of Early Childhood Education at the University of Illinois, put it this way: "Self-esteem and self-confidence don't come from being told you are great. You get them by facing challenges and mastering them through hard work and persistence." (Readers Digest, April 1994, "Are We Demanding Enough of Our Kids?)
To determine if students are experiencing a low, medium or high level of stress, students are given a test, in Lesson 8, called "My Stress Level." Among the causes of "high stress" are said to be: taking a test, being late for something, meeting someone new, being the first one to do something, or helping to plan a special event. In an earlier version, even "doing your chores" was said to cause stress.
If Johnny can't read, teachers bear accountability. If Johnny doesn't stay off drugs, will the police take responsibility for the failure of drug education in schools, and protect teachers from any attribution of blame?
Peter G. Arlos, a Pittsfield, Massachusetts, city councillor, put it this way:
"The tragic truth that the nation is spending $700 million a year on a program that may not work has not sunk in on the local or the national levels. A large D.A.R.E. bureaucracy has grown up that feeds on itself. The public raises no uproar because it needs the comfort of its delusion that something is being done to protect children from drugs."
Letter, Sunday Republican (Springfield, Mass.), November 21, 1993
This van, pictured on a web site maintained by a DARE officer, was seized by the government under a controversial program known as asset forfeiture, in which drug defendants can lose their property even if they are never found guilty of any crime.
It is widely known that D.A.R.E. officers are instructed to put a "D.A.R.E. Box" in every classroom, into which students may drop "drug information" or questions under the pretense of anonymity. Officers are instructed that if a student "makes a disclosure related to drug use," the officer should report the information to further authorities, both school and police. This apparently applies whether the "drug use" was legal or illegal, harmless or harmful. In a number of communities around the country, students have been enlisted by the D.A.R.E. officer as informants against their parents.
b. getting busted happens quite frequently.
LOL! Let's see: 236,800 drug prisoners in the U.S. in 1999 divided by 14.8 million drug users in the U.S. in 1999 means that drug users had a 1.6% chance of getting busted or a 98.4% chance of NOT getting busted in 1999...
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You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
Drinking beer and smoking pot at the same time. That's one of the best ways to die of alcohol poisoning .I can think of.
But probably less likely for someone to choke on their own vomit than alcohol alone. Two relevent side effects of THC are to make people want to eat and be less likely to vomit.
Whether DARE actually has any provable effect on kids is irrelevant. The purpose of DARE is to make people in positions of authority feel that they are Doing Something for the holy War on Drugs. Do you think your typical school district would discontinue DARE because of a large body of evidence showing it to be ineffective? Just another mind-numbing religious crusade, divorced from reality.
I know that in my case, I was a frequent user, went to school everyday, had fun, didn't do homework, took all the tests, and guess what? Did very well on the tests, aced most of them. But still ran about a D+ average. What does that tell you?
:->
That you are not as smart as you seem to think you are. If you are smart enough to ace the tests, then it would have only taken you 5 or 10 minutes to knock out the homework. Since it is not "amotivational syndrome" it must be sheer laziness...
As an OT aside, I was wondering if you are a programmer. Did you manage to pass your programming classes by taking the tests and not doing the program assignments (i.e., homework)?
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You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
Dependencies of any kind on physical substances are bad.
:->
Well, I have a pretty bad OXYGEN monkey on my back, and I know I would literally die if I didn't get my daily DIHYDROGEN MONOXIDE fix!
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You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
It is amazing how propaganda can take hold like this :)) An amazing meme, for sure. I'm sure the argument about 'airborn intoxicants' could easily be shot down by some credible controlled tests.
This guy's almost as bad as these people.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I've said like 15 times now, I don't care if they do drugs and I completely agree with you that it should be legalized - then you get a cleaner product and you can get it on the cheap.- ----
but for you to say I'm lying that that were on welfare, what the fuck is your deal, I went to school with these guys, I spoke with them, they WERE on welfare. there may have been reform in welfare, but I guarentee you (I grew up surrounded by it) there are plenty of people still screwing the system. I'm not sure where you live, but if you think otherwise, you are sadly mistaken.
on the good side we are all paying for it though via taxes, so that's all great. and I personally don't want to finance those assholes I went to school with that were stealing. I have no problem with the system were it to work. I have just seen too much abuse in it
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There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
Exactly my point.
That would (in theory) stop cocaine, and possibly some other crop that can't be produced in the US, at an immense cost in money and liberty.
Still, most drugs are and can be produced in the US. Pot, amphetamine, XTC, LSD, etc.
Your premise is that drugs are something alien that is being pushed into the otherwise clean US. The truth is very different.
well of course i know what it is, but the point that i am trying to make is that D.A.R.E was not inneffective but NONEXISTANT in my school(in Oklahoma). funny thing is that this is a college town, so there is terrible drug abuse among the kids. yet the only kids i saw wearing D.A.R.E shirts or drive cars with D.A.R.E bumper stickers were the hypocrats who sold/didn't go a day without drugs! as far as their education on drugs, i did not see one lecture or even advertisement for a lecture from this program or any other program throughtout all of my school carrier.
put a 5 year old in an candy store. tell him what each type of candy looks like and how it tastes. now tell him to stay in the store, but not to eat any of the candy because it will wrott his teeth. do you honestly think the kid is not going to try any of the candy?
i went through the DARE program with my peers, i can tell you that at least 80% of my friends have tried drugs of all kind, many of which use them on a regular basis. The DARE program is a horrible, horrible failure, and should be discontinued ASAP.
but for you to say I'm lying that that were on welfare, what the fuck is your deal, I went to school with these guys, I spoke with them, they WERE on welfare
I never said you were lying, but here in Texas there are women and children starving because the Republicans in charge are too chicken-shit to care about them. Maybe you are from Canada were everyone who wants welfare gets it, but here in the U.S. you have to work or go to school to get welfare and food stamps. The good old days of rampant welfare cheating are just a dim memory (unless you are a Ditto-head)...
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You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
I didn't tell anyone what to do with their lives, now did I? I simply expressed my opinions on the possible damaging effects of pot. Last time I checked, opinions were non-invasive. So take your facism-cum-paranoia elsewhere. And pass the bong***.
*** DISCLAIMER: The above post contained a joke as well as lilting sarcasm. Primordial creatures who may be disturbed or confused by this display of humor will be directed to stick their fingers in wall sockets.
ToiletDuk (58% Slashdot Pure)
ToiletDuk (58% Slashdot Pure)
My wife is a Ph.D student (just about to graduate) at the University of Florida. She studies the recall and comprehension effects of new media for the most part, but used some Health Communication issues like this as subject matter.
The most interesting effects were done on research pertaining to Florida's Anti-Tobacco Ad campaigns. She divided subjects into three groups of Risk-Takers based on a standard scale some of the more interesting findings were:
(1) We have a large number of rebelious-type risk takers among our youths and WHEN REBELIOUS-TYPE RISK TAKER'S PERCEIVE AN INTENDED EFFECT OF A CAMPAIGN, THEY TEND TO DO THE OPPOSITE.
(2) Parents who tell their kids not to smoke tend to provoke the opposite intended effect up to a point and then, suddenly become very effective. The stronger the emphasis the more the kids rebel up to a certain point. Kids of the very strongest parents' attitudes against smoking do tend to listen very much....Odd...but the result of the experiment was very clear on this.
(3) Using the scale she did, risk-taking tendencies was able to predict up to approx 80% of the decisions people made.
And that is by no means insignificant. Combine this with the predictive capabilities of other leading theories such as Cognitive Disonance and you're well over 100% predictability of human decision making.
(I think she might have published some of her studies on her site: http://grove.ufl.edu/~moon
I didn't mention getting drunk anywhere in the post, just drinking beers.
First, separate DARE from the larger issue of American drug policy. The latter is an unabashed, unarguable failure. The former is mostly a failure, but works surprisingly well in some localities.
DARE is, on one level, propaganda. Indoctrination. Brainwashing. Whatever you want to call it. Little kids are told that illegal drugs are bad, drugs prescribed by a doctor are good, and there's no in-between. They're taught to have an instinctive, knee-jerk reaction to drugs[*], a reaction which is for the most part a good one to have [**].
On another level, though, DARE can be incredibly effective. Two words: adult intervention. In DARE, it takes form most often in the role of a cop with a good heart (and yes, cynics beware, there are a lot of them out there--although not as many as I'd like). If the cop takes his job seriously, he's going to do more for those kids than just show up once a year to talk about how evil drugs are. He's going to show up at the school play, at band performances. He's going to talk to the kids and keep an eye on them, make sure that the kids know they can count on him, that if they have problems they can turn to him.
It's not important that a cop does this. It's important that someone does this. Teachers do this quite often, and they can frequently make a difference in their students' lives--but they're also spread out over several classes and tons of students. Any help they can get in the task of providing good role models, people who are actively interested in their kids' lives, is manna from heaven.
US drug policy is a total nightmare, and DARE is probably not a lot better. But--and this is a very big but--DARE sometimes gets another adult involved in children's lives.
The best preventative measure for drug abuse is to give children role models, people they can look up to, people they know who pay attention to them and are interested in their lives. This is not one of DARE's goals, but it's something that happens along the way.
Sometimes.
If you're lucky enough to have good cops in your DARE program.
[*] I'm of two minds on this. One part of me says that we want our kids to have a strong knee-jerk reaction against crack cocaine and I'm all in favor of indoctrination. Another part of me says that indoctrination is not education; education means teaching kids how to think clearly, critically and rationally, which goes entirely against the indoctrination aspects of DARE.
[**] The irony of DARE causes me no end of dark humor. DARE tells us that kids ought not take amphetamines, because drugs are bad. But if a kid is a little rambunctious in class, all it takes is five minutes with a school psychiatrist to get a recommendation for dexedrine, benzedrine or Ritalin. They're told that drug abuse is bad, and the school turns around and turns some of the kids into junior junkies just because they don't want to sit still.
Guy, you need to study some history.
First off, the other replier is ansolutely correct. Lets call "marijuana" by its american neame, shall we? Hemp.
Hemp was a major industrial crop from the days of the tall ships to WWI, where it was the original source of canvas. Hemp seed oil (aka hash oil) was a COMMON ingredient in patent medications.
Growing hemp was illegalized after a scare campaign funded and led by William Randolph Hearst, the infamous yellow-sheet newspaper baron. As part of his empire, Hearst owned forests, logging companies and wood-pulp based paper mills. In the 1930s a machine caleld the 'decorticator' was invented theat threatned to put the wood pulp paper buisiness OUt of business by making it feasible (and much hceaper, not to memtion more environmentally friendly) to make paper from hemp.
Hearst, knowing that noone would take a hemp scare campaign seriously, imported the term "marijuana" from mexico and begin a smeer campaign. (A highly racist one at that, linking marijuana with those awful, demonic black jazz artists who gte hooped up on marijuana and rape your white women... I kid you not, the papers are stil lavailable at your major metropolitan libraries I think-- go look it up, or see the refernce at the end of this post. )
There is a ruel in politics in America that all real politicians know. If you want to understand policies, follow the money because thats ALWAYS where the trail leads.
There is an excellent, very scholarly and wll researched book you should read before you try to talk abotu the history of marijuana again. It's called "The Emperors new Clothes" and it covers all of this, with cites, refernces, and reproductions of historical documents.
As a side issue, stating that "alcohol prohibition didn't work but marijuana prohibition does" is either willful blindess or totally niavete. Why should one work when the other didn't? The only difference is that there was more VIOLENCE around alcohol prohibiton so it became more obvious it was failing. Are you saying you WANT violence around marijuana prohibiton? I think it points to how much better/safer/less addictive a drug marijuana is that there ISN'T such violence.
Also, you should read "Drugs for Mental Illness". Its a college medical text book on psychopharmacological substances. They disuss eveything from Prozac to Alchohol and rate the dangers on a well thought out and objectively testable scale. Alcohol turns out to be one of the MOST dangerous substances, ranking just behind the opiates.
I didn't mention getting drunk anywhere in my post, just drinking beers.
What, you think crack dealers force people at gunpoint to buy their product? Last time someone tried to sell me crack (I was walking through San Francisco's Tenderloin district), I just said "no, thanks" and walked on.
He said "no problem, man" and made a sale to the guy behind me.
The name "drug pusher" is misleading. Many of them don't push drugs at all--they sell drugs to a clientele who actively want drugs, who scream for drugs, who commit armed robbery to get the money for drugs. If you tell these drug dealers "no", they'll shrug and move on because they know that walking behind you is a guy who'll say "yes".
Now, saying no won't work against a real pusher--someone who wheedles and cajoles the unwary and naieve (kids and teenagers) into taking a free hit on the crack pipe. So Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" campaign probably didn't help them all that much. I think "Just Run Like Hell" would've worked better, myself.
But saying no to drug dealers works a surprising amount of the time.
Such as "gateway drugs."
AFAIK No scientific study has EVER proven this "slide into debauchery" cocnept valid. It has a lot more to do with deeply ingrained american-christian myths of "temptation" then ANY scientific fact. If there were any truth to it then half of the sutdents I went to college with should now be living on the streets and main-lining.
There are only a few things anyone has found to date that corrolate to psycholigcal addicition (physical addiction is a whole different subject):
(1) The better the first expereince with a drug, the more likely someoen is to be "hooked" by repeated use.
(2) A great many so called addicts are actually suffering from mental illness and atttempting to self-medicate. It's estimated in the psychiatry community that 1/3 of all alcholics are actually suffering from undiagnosed mood disorders ("clinical depress" and "manic depression".)
Such as "gateway drugs."
AFAIK No scientific study has EVER proven this "slide into debauchery" cocnept valid. It has a lot more to do with deeply ingrained american-christian myths of "temptation" then ANY scientific fact. If there were any truth to it then half of the sutdents I went to college with should now be living on the streets and main-lining.
There are only a few things anyone has found to date that corrolate to psycholigcal addicition (physical addiction is a whole different subject):
(1) The better the first expereince with a drug, the more likely someoen is to be "hooked" by repeated use.
(2) A great many so called addicts are actually suffering from mental illness and atttempting to self-medicate. It's estimated in the psychiatry community that 1/3 of all alcholics are actually suffering from undiagnosed mood disorders ("clinical depression" and "manic depression".)
... of a marijuana activist loudly trumpeting that marijuana doesn't kill brain cells...
:)
... who then attributes the Galaxy Song to Monty Python, when they never came within a parsec of it.
(I think Tom Lehrer performed it, but don't quote me.)
The CIA very effectively shut down their primary competition-- the Metteine (sp?) cartel.
The war on drugs was turf war between the CIA and third party drug supplires. Viewed in this light the whole thing starts to make a whole lot more sense. (See my post earlier abt the warehouse stuffed with cocaine to which the CIA held the lease and the strangely-vanishing San Jose Mercury News story abotu the CIA providing guns to drug lords in south-central Los Angeles.)
And elst we forget, what did our "War on Drugs" president, Goerge Bush, do BEFORE he was president??
(For people with little memory: he was head of the CIA.)
Everyone knows that DARE stands for "Drugs Are Really Excelent"!
"huhuhuhh, go away. we're like closed or something"
All illegal drugs are bad. They serve no real purpose and cause great harm.
During the Prohibition, alcohol was illegal. Does that mean alcohol used to be bad, have no real purpose, and cause great harm? Possibly. But now alcohol is legal. Does that mean that alcohol is suddenly good? That is suddenly serves a "real" purpose and causes NO harm?
Cigarettes are legal, too. Do cigarettes serve a real purpose and cause no harm?
cpeterso
Comment removed based on user account deletion
> Legal and illegal, the two are very different
:(
And not necessarily equivalent to safe or dangerous. EG: Skydiving=legal, unsafe. Shoplifting=illegal, safe.
> There's no quality assurance of any kind
Says who? I stand behind my gear
> Smoking that joint might not kill you, but it might just be your ticket to utter looserdom
Or it might not be. Studying CS might be your ticket to utter loserdom. Getting maimed in a car accident might be your ticket to utter loserdom. Winning the lottery might be your ticket to utter loserdom. Everyone's life is different.
> How do you know it's not full of heroine?
It's no more likely to be full of herion than a hotdog, a can of coke or a aspirin. Anything could be "laced" with heroin in theory. Where did you get the idea that people put heroin in marijuana from?
> You should pay more attention to officer Joe, he knows all the dealers and he's not making any money by lying
They guys job is to tell people not to take drugs because all illegal drugs will ruin your life and make you an addict - therefore he does make money from lying
You want to know about DARE, just follow the money. Same thing with the "War on Drugs."
Who is profiting? There is a pile of money being spent on these initiatives, and it doesn't just evaporate: it ends up in someone's pockets.
Now, some of that money will go to innocuous end points: paying the paycheque for the cop that spends an hour in the school, paying the advertising agency that creates a poster, that sort of thing.
What you're looking for are people getting really rich off DARE and War Against Drugs.
Like, what's the "drug czar"'s paycheque? Betcha it's bloody big... and I betcha he really, really doesn't want to lose it.
How much are directors for DARE paid? Betcha it's good coin. Betcha they're highly motivated to continue DARE, regardless its efficacy.
Follow the money. If it all goes to legit purposes, then it's probably a legit organization.
If it's lining someone's pockets to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, then it's probably a scam...
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
From what i've seen, the students who were most eager to participate in dare turned out to be the ones who were the biggest druggies - dare is a complete crock and a waste of money.
"Make it idiot proof, and someone will make a better idiot."
DARE = Democrats Are Ruining Everything
DARE = Dumb-Ass Republicans Elected
The War on Drugs is a failure. So is DARE.
To end the War on Drugs, Vote Libertarian.
Actually, my favorite thing about DARE is when the cops paint confiscated cars with the DARE logos and such. I saw a 'vette painted that way once, and I had to laugh when I imagined the following exchange:
"Peterson, get in here!"
"Yes, Chief?"
"Peterson, your new cruiser is in. The good news, is it's a Corvette."
"Thank you, sir, what's the bad news?"
"The bad news is, we had it painted with that candy-ass DARE shit, so you better watch yourself in the squad room."
And when you find out that these caring officers (who may, in fact, have seriosuly cared) were either lying or seriously misinformed?
What will you think then? (This phenomenon is called "backlash" and is as dangerous or more so then the situation they are trying to address.)
Reponsible Use of Drugs Education
Part of the problem with all these scare tactics programs is that they equate use and abuse. All a kid has to do is look at his parents' medicine cabinate to know that's not true.
I never did DARE, but I had its predecessor, scare-tactic "drug education" in the new york schools.
We laughed at the stupid adults who were clearly all clueless and figured half of 'em went hoem and got loaded on booze regularly anyway.
If memory serves me right, a few years ago High Times Magazine reported that the founder of dare renounced all ties with the organization because it had gone out of control.
Mod this one up: Ironic
That'd be the military-industrial complex buttering up politicians to create new markets for their death toys. Plus a bit of Yankee imperialism thrown in for good measure. The Columbians have a peace treaty in place with the Marxists, which Uncle Sam doesn't like, so the War on Drugs provides a good cover for some old school "counter insurgency".
Good summation of the mantra too
I don't know what that is!!
I admire your post 2 levels up, where your motivation not to use is that your energy came directly, unaltered, from youth. But you seem to be spending too much of that energy telling others what not to do...
That's what I'm saying...DARE does stupid things, and that message is clearer than what they preach. I have seen ads showing guns, knives, etc and then a marijuana joint. Yal, sure, weed is just like killing people. Come on, kids are smarter than that. Ads like those immediately turn away those that might have been impacted by the overall message. They discount it immediately based on FUD, and an extreme over-exageration of reality. Speaking for myself, and a whole lot of other people, I have smoked weed on more than one occassion (probably 1000 times), and never once felt the need to kill people, inject heroine, or felt like I could fly from a 60 story building. I have thought that some of the DARE people should try the latter tho... :)
Todd
So smoking marijuana while binge drinking is not a good idea...
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
While there is no specific doctrine opposing drug use, there is doctrine that holds the law of the land up as church doctrine. Hence, LDS doctrine (in the US at least) forbids illegal substances. Kind of a circular logic thing, but that's that. Interestingly enough, that's really the only reason that we mormons do not practice puligamy anymore. It was made illegal so as to persecute us, and as soon as that happened, we stopped. Funny how that stuff works, now quit picking on me and my mormon cohorts.
Oh, and as for D.A.R.E... Well I took DARE class from a police officer who would take smoke breaks during our dare lessons, classy? Undoubtedly. I do not use drugs, but I don't think it has much to do with my DARE education. DARE may have changed a lot though. I was in one of the first DARE classes so I'm sure it's a bit different. All I remember is that there were 8 ways to say no, including the broken record, claiming allergic reaction, and a few others. Heaven forbid you actually stand up for yourself and tell your peers what you think. Come to think of it, maybe this is what's wrong with our MTV society today, damn DARE class, first the broken record, now Britney Spears...
That's right - all over Ohio D.A.R.E. has provided local municipailties with the ability to buy bitchin' Camaros, get sweeeeet paint jobs, justify thousands of hard earned tax-dollars in engine go-fast parts and chrome goodies and mill work, and hot-rod at the local supermarket and, of course, donut shops! Go D.A.R.E. go!
D.A.R.E. - Donut Awareness Resistance Education - keep cops off crullers! Do your share!
Even casual involvement excludes total freedom by it's inherent nature. John Valby
Salt Lake County has dissolved the DARE program in its area. Instead, it has integrated the anti-drug abuse into the curriculum, trying to make the anti-drug effort more a state of mind than a once every so often lecture and bumper sticker type thing. The change is recent so there are no real results yet, but I think the idea behind the change is right. Sorry I don't have any pointers to details, but try deseretnews.com. -ty
friends a few years older than them who partied hard in high school, went to college and partied hard, and still ended up with normal jobs, normal families, and the whole bit. No-one has given a good enough reason not to do it
Isn't that reason enough? If you take drugs, you will be like your parents!
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Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
He turned water into wine at a wedding.
He did not get drunk, though.
I think that the DARE program has laudable goals but is done in a very wrong way. Because of that I have some real concerns about this program.
First, children are easily brain-washable with a rewards system. The DARE program rewards kids with rides in cop cars, fire trucks and in some cases here in MN, even rides in National Guard helocopters!
Kids (I was one once) are desperate to participate, to be part of the group and also fear that if they don't come up with something, they will not get their ride. This is true even if the cops say something else. This causes kids to turn in their parents, siblings, and classmates even if they need to make something up to do it!
I am sure that the police are aware some of this happens but the shadow of suspicion can cause some pretty severe probelms for many people.
Not only that but I believe that this is a privacy issue. In the case where a child reports his parent, he is in effect a police informant in the home.
There is another side of the thing that I don't think many people think about. DARE is financed via contributions. Often this money comes from companies that have business relationships with the police department. This can be very bad business practice.
For instance, the auto dealer who wants to sell the police department is visited by a DARE representitive soliciting a contribution. What happens can almost be seen as extortion. The dealer knows that if he doesn't play the game and his competitor does, the bid request will include specifications that will make it easier for his competition to win the bid. Same thing is true for the raido supplier, the uniform supplier, and all the other vendors the police deal with.
I want to be clear, I do not endorse drug use/abuse (especially when kids are involved). I just think that perhaps the DARE program has enough faults so that it can be abused, and can be used for political purposes. I also abhor the fact that it becomes a privacy invasion in a families home.
Disclaimer: IANAL (I Am Not a Lama)
I love the sig, but quick question: What's a Lama?
I "graduated" from D.A.R.E. over ten years ago. If it weren't for D.A.R.E., I wouldn't do drugs. D.A.R.E taught me that a single joint is as addictive and deadly as an entire pack of cigarettes. It taught me that drug dealers were ugly monsters and shouldn't be your friends. Then, it taught me that these ugly monsters would actually be my friends and that I shouldn't be friends with that sort of people.
These lies left me completely unprepared for the real world. The independant research I did on my own was far more revealing; I know which ones to try and which ones to avoid. I am now a pothead, which I partially blame on DARE; if DARE hadn't lied about pot, I wouldn't have been so distraut.
But this is what D.A.R.E. was like ten years ago. Perhaps they actually train the policemen who teach it now.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
None of these politicians give a rat's ass whether DARE works or not. It's politically popular to spend money on this kind of activity. Heck, this is one of the few things with strong, bipartisan support. Many of them derive monetary benefit either directly or indirectly by supporting this stuff. It's real popular with law enforcement agencies. The drug war has swollen their staff.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
No. D.A.R.E. does not work to deter drug use, nor will it, because people like drugs. People like alcohol, people like drugs of all kinds, and people in general are not going to stop doing them. Oh, interest will wax and wane, but don't worry--the kids will be binge drinking, smoking dope, getting coked up, speeding, snorting, injecting, what have you, to get fucked up, because like it or not, drugs are a fundamental part of human culture. It's been part of human culture from Bacchus and Shiva to Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, and beyond. Sure, the government can spend lots of cash, they can educate me...in fact, I appreciate all the drug education I get. Although most educators are trying to give a biased view, they do give out a lot of really helpful information. I'm glad for the DARE session I had in school--it gave me a lot of info I'm glad I got before I became the disreputable drug abuser that I am now...in fact, I have to say that drug education really got me interested to find out more, to get deeper. I don't know if you agree, but I think that means it was quite effective.
You sure about that? The trend these days (at least where I live in California), is towards harsh sentences (such as large fines or prison) for even first time users, despite a smattering of ballot measures aimed at reducing sentences. Sortof of a "scare them straight the first time" approach, I suppose...
There's one big problem with DARE. They only tell one side of the story. For example, they never bother to mention the health benefits of small amounts of alcohol, regularly drank (drunk?) because they figure kids won't be able to judge how much is too much. When kids learn about these things, they figure that everything DARE taught them is a lie, and go ahead and smoke or take whatever the heck they want. That's my problem with DARE. It's a good idea, but a bad implementation.
Hey, you try to find an open nick these days!
In this Boston Herald article there is a definite assertion that the War on Drugs isn't quite working the way the tax-spenders wished it would. I particularly like the line: "Beer is certainly the drug of choice," it's amazing to see how many people still think alcohol isn't a drug just because it's socially accepted.
This quote about the D.A.R.E. program was definitely true for me: "As a sixth-grade child, you think you're not going to use drugs. But when you get older and are put in a different situation, things change." Anyone else??
teeheehee == substance.use(pot, beer);
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Everything you've just read was poetry and art - no infringement!
(Discordia)
"We are not always what we seem, and hardly ever what we dream."
Schmendrick the Magician
The War on Drugs is evil and pointless, and finally there's a chance to do something about it.
http://www.pacificsites.com/~mce/ Mea sureG.html
This is a ballot measure in Mendocino County, part of the Emerald Triangle in northern California, where I grew up. If I still lived there, I'd gladly vote for this! Check it out.
Dr. Demento On The 'Net!
Now, this I would agree with. Treat pot using like being DUI, rather than like mass murder.
We still need to get the supreme court to bitch-slap congress for telling cops that they can sieze people's assets and keep them. If that isn't a violation of the constitution, and a blinking neon sign inviting corruption and abuse, I don't know what is.
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Clear, Dark Skies
I can just see Hippie Fundamentalists running around crucifying people because they don't own a bong.
I dunno. Would they actually use a cross? Maybe they'd use a big ol' version of that crow's foot peace sign.
I can see it now - fundamentalists waking up in terror as paisley-sheeted ruffians burn a peace sign on their lawn.
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Clear, Dark Skies
Oh, man, yeah. The recent epidemic of crank users in Kansas is a perfect example of this - everybody's brewing their own, and WalMart can't stock sinus medicines because they're being shoplifted an hour after they arrive from the distributor.
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Clear, Dark Skies
Why, yes I have. The corner liquor store was robbed the other week, probably to get money to buy drugs, though I'm sure the creep enjoys a smoke and a drink as well.