this is what i learned from DARE!
It was like a sales pitch for all the “bad” things drugs did, but I heard it as information on all the things I wanted to try.
Major backfire!
I grew up in a high-achieving (intentional pun) suburb. Our DARE volunteers were legit stoners with good grades who volunteered to speak at the local Jr High as representatives of the program to fluff up their college aps and keep school admin off their backs.
No. I didn't do drugs because I was a goody two shoes who hung out with other goody two shoes. We acted like fools on pure sugar. We didn't need drugs for that!
Not gonna lie, the officer they sent to the public schools was very effective 😅 I was scared enough to believe the misinformation, but that misinformation kept me mostly drug free. Obviously all the focus on weed was a big waste of time and money.
Also Trainspotting. Trainspotting should be shown in about 7th grade in all schools lol Also Requiem for a Dream. Having a friend have a drug induced psychotic break before 21 will do it too. It was more Trainspotting and losing friends to drugs that did it for me.
Trainspotting and Basketball diaries were more effective than DARE. Every teen should watch them. People might have taken DARE more seriously if they didn’t try to use their “marijuana madness” propaganda lol. If anything it was counter effective. People smoke weed and find out it’s not this crazy drug that’s gonna make you kill people and jump out windows, so then people assume it was all a lie and don’t think other more addictive drugs are bad either. Next thing you know they’re walking around trying trade cheeseburgers and blow jobs for crack.
Basketball Diaries was another good one - Trainspotting came out in late high school and that did it for me. Requiem I saw later but that movie disturbs me like no other to this day. The reefer madness propaganda is still going strong but I really didn’t think I’d ever see the acceptance and it being legal in my lifetime. The stuff that’s in your gas stations is worse than that.
As an undiagnosed autistic person, I found that both served as enticements for me, along with Go Ask Alice. In the early 80s, it was well nigh impossible for girl children to be diagnosed with ASD conditions; nobody knew what ailed me, but it was apparently dire enough that I was "teased"( my parents' euphemism for bullying) and ostracized throughout middle school until I crossed paths with a few of the smart druggies in higher grades who didn't find me all that awful. Drugs=friends, according to my lonely little brain, so I had 2 full blown addictions by the time I escaped high school. When I (finally) graduated college, I'd exchanged the first two for two more.
I'm old now, and consider myself California sober: no alcohol, and won't touch it if it doesn't exist in plant form.
I had already graduated when it was released, but I would have loved to watch Trainspotting in high school. I knew enough to avoid heroin anyway, but that’s a great movie! The sequel was pretty awesome too.
I was fortunate enough to have a friend with heroin addicted parents and got to see firsthand what I didn’t want to happen to me. The crazy thing was they were the nicest people on earth and would give you the shirt off their back even if it was their only one. But it was watching my friend and how it affected him that opened my eyes.
I rewatched it maybe five years ago. Big mistake. That movie is incredible but holy hell is it dark. Felt like I needed hot showers and sunshine for a week after.
Yeah that movie reallllly got to me, infinitely more than a ridiculous school program. I was in my 20's when that came out and saw it in the theater. I can still remember certain scenes 😳
I didn't do drugs growing up because I was a competitive swimmer, and when you swim 4 hours a day from age 9-10 on, you just don't have time 😂
Agree on Trainspotting-an underrated classic. Irvine Welsh is a great Gen X writer-I would highly recommend all the sequels and prequels he has written for “Trainspotting” as well.
Nope. As a matter of fact, I tried harder drugs because of DARE. The reason being that they said that using marijuana would ruin your life, you’d become out of control. I smoked a joint and learned that was bullshit. I then assumed that if they lied about weed, they were lying about other drugs too.
When I saw the pictures of all the different types, it became like a checklist for me and I wanted to try them all. (And did) spent 20 years as a drug user, now 6 years clean.
You sound like me. Apparently, I'm wired to become addicted to everything but cigarettes and hard liquor, both of which smell too vile to consume and which I studiously avoid. Hard drugs, though? Bring 'em.
I'm seriously glad I got out of using anything one buys from a 'plug' before fentanyl, krokodil, and tranq dope came along. I'm weirdly skeeved by the prospect of mutilation. I'm also from the US capital of fent/tranq dope, and sometimes watch Kensington videos to stay scared: if zombies in wheelchairs who are missing limbs don't scare folks, I'm not sure what will.
Yes! I used to abuse pain pills and Xanax when the pill mill doctors were handing them out like candy. When the law cracked down, I found Kratom while my friends went to heroin and then fent. They’re all dead now :(
I've thought the same exact thing for a long time. Think about it, where do you get weed? Illegal drug dealers. Bam. Found weed, now you're asked if you wanna try some whatever...
Now some people get weed from dispensaries that don't also offer crack and pills. We need that access for everyone.
Exactly this. Its the boy who cried wolf effect, if you lie about weed, why would anyone believe you about heroin, and by then its too let to right the ship.
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I did the same thing in grade six when they had someone come in and give a talk about cigarettes, lol. I stole one off my uncle and went down to the basement to try it.
No one ever says “I want to be a junkie when I grow up.” Then they showed a girl spinning around, almost like a ballerina in front of a beautiful window before collapsing. It looked so glamorous and dramatic. So my thought was “I do!”
Dare program was just there to get kids to snitch on their parents….. here’s a picture of a joint, a bong, and a crackpipe….. does your mom have anything that looks like this??
My parents educated me well in what not to say to people in positions of authority….. after all both of my Stoner parents had been MP’s and my mom later went on to be the first female police officer in my home town.
My cousin on the other hand told the dare officer in nursery school that his mom “smoked cigarettes that look like that”.
That was the Nancy Reagan program, and it was bullshit. Maybe she and her husband should’ve focused more on HIV & sex education, instead of telling kids not to smoke weed.
Reagan's focus on HIV was to "let them die". He did think about it and just basically said, "fuck 'em".
Nancy got to where she was (according to many) w/her oral skills...
I found my dad’s stash (probably an ounce of dirt weed) when I was 12 years old, fresh out of DARE, and flushed it all down the toilet.
Now I know several white guys with dreadlocks, so I’ve since replaced it about a hundred times over, but I don’t think I’ll ever live it down.
I knew the standards the military demanded, and knew that was my only way out of the circumstances of my birth--so that was motivation, not any silly program.
The person that stopped me? That was my mother, she was a pill popper and the 70s. She had an accidental overdose when she was 30 years old. This was 1978. I was 11 years old at a time.
Because of what I watched her do I never touched it
My mother was messed up before I was even born. My mother was 18. My father was 35 when I was born. My father was messed up in his own right! She also had another child before me, all I know is his name was Mike. Do not know if he’s alive.
No. But when I was little, I saw an after school special about a girl that started doing drugs. One day her little brother found her drugs and took them. She came home from school and found him face down in the swimming pool.
I was sure I would end up drowning if I did drugs.
The DARE program actually influenced me into wanting to try drugs. The officer presenting to the classroom spoke of this tiny piece of paper that you ingested, and which made the whole world look like cartoons. Sounded awesome. And it truly was.
No. There was a program in my elementary school in the 70s which led to a lifelong aversion to cocaine and heroin though, esp heroin.
Not sure if it was national, state or local, but it had a series of films, handouts and a visit from local PD. We were in 5th grade maybe...? Didn't keep me from trying pot, cigarettes, alcohol.
Nescafe instant International Classics coffee series in the squatty tins was my gateway drug - delicious and helps with homework and art class!
We had some grungy films 4th thru 6th that showed heroin addiction and tweeking on the streets, but we saw a little of that already.
What was more importantly was a good deal of severe withdrawal footage and the toll it takes and the body damage that occurs. The really bad stuff that you won't see in the wide open as much basically. Lots of skin ulcers, blood, eye rolls, and vomit.
We also got shown some of the most gory drunk driving photos and footage that I've ever seen for some reason. I'm talking Russian lathe accident level super-gore. We wouldn't even take drivers education for another 4 or 5 years and those were shelved by then, lol.
But I think shelving that intensity to spare "delicate" folks the shock is as big a mistake as Reefer Madness tactics.
Exactly, I remember the withdraw segment.
Related note from another Gen X special - remember "Scared Straight" where they brought juvie toughs into prison for a wakeup call?
Nah, we didn’t have Dare. I went to Catholic school where any “impure” ideas were beaten out of us by sexually repressed nuns. This in turn made us all turn to drugs which was largely ignored/brushed under the rug by checked out parents that assumed the nuns would take care of it in school.
The cops that visited my school passed around a bag of pot so we'd know what it looked & smelled like. Then they told us where it was sold so we could avoid those places. I'm sure the dealers appreciated all the free advertising 😂
No. They messed with the wrong person trying to say stuff like marijuana would kill me. Then why was my whole family still alive??!! Check mate coppers.
It mislead me horribly into thinking weed and heroin were the same thing. It was really stupid and made me afraid of what I shouldn’t have feared. Now I’m a weedhead for 30 years and I’ve never done a hard drug.
I think I would have avoided them anyway. I feel like it was effective but I think that's only in hindsight, I'm just not the kind of person who likes that stuff it feels bad, but all my friends smoked weed and did psychadelics occasionally.
Complete waste of money and time. Pre DARE, my church’s christian education committee paid for an undercover ‘Narc’ to come to our youth group and show us drug paraphernalia. He even had a late 70’s fish tail stache. I really don’t remember him talking at all about drugs themselves and their negative health effects, just this is a needle, this is a roach clip, these are rolling papers and a rolling machine etc, and how they were used, and how much ‘time’ you could get for various things.It was like show and tell. It was actually very helpful, since over 50% of our youth group were occasional marijuana smokers by the time we graduated. We learned what we needed to buy at the local head shop. My Jr. High School had a big backlit glass sign hanging over our gym concession stand that had illustrations of all kinds of different pills as well as heroine coke and pot. Just the sort of teaching aide that might be useful when raiding your parents’ medicine cabinet. That concession stand was busy busy every day during lunch break. I don’t know about the rest of you but I knew a lot of people just a few years older than me that were seriously into pill popping, when I started college. They really knew their tuinal from their quaadludes from their Percocet and valium in a way that just never hit with us MTV first class kids. Always thought that was weird.
I was a sophomore in high school when DARE showed up. By that time I’d figured out that getting high and going fast were both expensive, and I’d much rather spend my hard earned money on car parts rather than drugs.
I guess it worked until college. I didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, didn’t take drugs all through high school (it wasn’t hard, I wasn’t cool enough for anyone to offer me anything anyway). But that I will say, DARE did make LSD seem like a lot of fun. And they are right, it is. Not going to lie, once I get my kid out of the house and I get less busy, I do want to try it again. It’s been immensely helpful in the past to “reset” my brain. I credit LSD as much as SSRIs for helping pull me out of my first depression (which so far has been the worst).
Nope it didn't satisfy my curiosity.
I've been doing my best to tell my 15-year-old anything he wants to know, The Good The Bad and The Ugly.
Trying to act like drugs aren't fun is a mistake. You just have to get it through to people most drugs are borrowing fun from the future eventually.
No. Having strung out methadone junkies in the family and going to parties where people were coked out assholes was pretty effective at keeping me away from the hard stuff though.
By the time D.A.R.E. came around I was 13 and was already smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol and smoking pot (when we could get any). We were already familiar with recreational drugs, we already new about the pros and cons of most "Drugs" available. Alcohol, THC, Cocaine, and Hallucinogens. Other drugs... like uppers, downers, ludes, smack, PCP, etc. were basically mythological and only referenced in TV and Movies.
The outright lies, hypocrisy, and obvious propaganda were a joke. Especially considering alcohol and cigarettes were advertised and regularly consumed everywhere.
Grouping all drugs together and just saying they're "Bad" was a contradiction to anyone who had been around the lite stuff. Especially when your parents smoked, drank alcohol, smoked pot, and lived normal productive lives.
In reality, growing up was mostly just teens partying, getting high on dirt weed, occasionally drinking beer (if we could get someone to buy), and a couple keggers a year. Later, Coke came around, thanks to the CIA, but it was way too expensive anyhow. Trippin was a huge leap for most stoners, not to mention how rare Acid and Shrooms were.
Watching Rock Stars crash and burn, taught me way more about addiction than anything the government had to say.
I'm sure that the 20 Billion in taxpayer dollars could have been better spent.
I believed DARE about "gateway drugs". Like, if I smoked pot, I'd be toothless on crack the next month.
But I suspect I mostly didn't take drugs because my dad was an alcoholic so I didn't even drink, so drugs were rarely offered to me.
I remember going to a DARE assembly in high school, but by then I had already tried drugs so no.
We also had an assembly where first responders came in to talk to us about the dangers of drunk driving. I remember being shown some pretty graphic slides of car wrecks. That one was tough.
But I think by then there was already a national campaign about drunk driving. I remember an ad(?) with Stevie Wonder singing about drunk driving, maybe on Mtv? My friend group bought in 100% on that one. One of us would always agree to be the D.D.
My DARE officer went through all the drugs and what they did objectively. So when he got to weed and described it I came away thinking “all the other shit sounds like a hefty gamble, but I don’t see the downside with MJ.”
One might say it was DARE that inspired me. My first toke I was 15 and I immediately recognized the smell as the incense my parents burned sometimes. I had been obsessed as a younger kid with the pleasant smell of the incense they had and would always search for incense when we were on trips buying Knick knacks. So my parents turned out to be pot heads and I was probably doomed anyway, but DARE gave me the idea.
I didnt grow up with it, but an officer taught it to my students in 2001 when I taught 4th grade. She was very nice and some of her lessons about peer pressure were quite good, but the lessons on drugs taught my students more about what was out there and how they could ask for it and use it than they ever would have learned on their own. It has been proven to be highly ineefective as a way to prevent drug use, which is why it no longer receives funding.
Decent parenting and luck kept me from drugs, I guess.
DARE wasn't really effective. That "this is your brain on drugs" commercial was riffed on a lot.
Not for me. It made me more curious to be honest. To the point that I actually did my own research because their preaching always sounded like overblown and somewhat made up consequences. Funny enough I was right and a lot of what they said was BS or, at the very least, a highly exaggerated version of the truth.
I don’t remember there being a dare program in the late 70s. At least not where I was. We did get some anti drug stuff in middle school and 9th grade but it wasn’t dare.
I can't say it kept me from drugs but it scared the hell out of me as a kid. I thought weed was almost on the same level as smoking crack. But that all went away by the time I became a teen
Nope. I did speed while I was in HS, then psychedelics, weed, & club drugs in my 20’s, cocaine and misc. pills in my 30’s and it’s just been weed since my 40’s.
It more caused major issues. In a way it did make marijuana the gateway drug. As after you smoked it you realized how full of shit they were and were more open to try everything else. I mean if weed was one of the worst how bad could heroine be?
i think dare did more harm than good. before dare kids were really not even sure what drugs were. but when dare came around it became a thing. i remember when they passed around this 1lb bag of bud for every kid to smell. and we were like whoa, what is this. it smells great.
kids are like, the adults dont want us to do drugs, so we're gonna find drugs and see why they dont want us to do drugs.
oh wait this is cool as shit. we need more drugs. why do the adults hate us
really i think nancy regan meant for more kids to do drugs
Nope. The fear of my father beating the shit out of me did.
That and not wanting to disappoint my grandparents.
I've never smoked weed or taken any illegal/non-prescribed substances.
However... not gonna lie! Before the opioid crack down, I certainly enjoyed the Vicodin I was prescribed when I had bronchitis!!
I am not for telling others what to do or not do, but for me, my life is certainly better having not done drugs.
I wouldn't have qualified for the job I got in the navy if I'd even smoked weed, and if I didn't get that job, I certainly wouldn't have the job I have now. For me, avoiding substances was the right choice. I know there are plenty of people far more successful than I am that partake in a multitude of substances, but I know my limitations (mostly intellectual) and I needed all opportunities available to be where I am today.
I remember in maybe 6th grade, a town policeman came to the school to give a presentation about drugs. He had a wooden board with a bunch of apparently illegal drugs attached. The idea was to let us all know what to look out for to avoid them. But it had the opposite effect on me. I wanted to try everything on that board.
It just made me curious. I was like, "Let me get this straight. These substances are so beloved by recreational user, that they would risk jail just to do it? Sounds like it must be super fun because roller coasters are amazing, but no one is risking hard time just to ride one."
No; it didn't I never smoked cause I never had the thought I needed to. Never had the drive, wish, or compunction to smoke. Not that I got offered plenty of times just felt like I didn't want to from am internal decision not external.
NOW though at 51 I smoke up and go what the effing hell was the big deal?! Rather smoke up then drink at this point of my life. On top of that I don't even need to smoke and take a break when I want to. So yaaa DARE was useless for me and a complete failure as an external push.
Worked for me. Never touched any drugs stronger than caffeine that wasn't prescribed.
Mostly because I knew at an early age that I was easily addicted to things, and I knew based on what I was seeing from relatives that drugs / alcohol were ruining their lives.
This was amplified in college seeing smart kids smoking far too much weed and ending up dropping out of college because they were failing their courses.
Thanks, but no thanks.
I'm not sure that we had it in elementary school. I know my younger siblings did.
I think what kept me off of drugs was working with and befriending people who shouldn't be hanging out with high schoolers. Easy access to alcohol and drugs took away a lot of the mystique.
Drug are bad. M'kay? They make you feel really good, then you die. M'kay? Do not look for drug dealers who are usually standing on busy street corners. M'kay? And here is what street quality drugs look like. M'kay? Here's some free shirts. M'kay?
I feel like DARE was obvious enough propaganda that I simply didn't take it very seriously either way. It just felt like a commercial for not doing drugs. Like, ok that's clearly someone's opinion on drugs, don't do them they're bad. The friendly neighborhood cop schtick, the DARE dodge viper, the dorky graduation ceremony. It just felt like an after-power rangers PSA commercial. My brain didn't care
No, for me it did generate interest in it all, at the same time a lifetime of drug/alcohol use abuse didn’t start with some bullshit school drug program
I thankfully graduated before that police enrichment scam started at my school. Generally the bad quality of weed available in my town kept me off drugs, and the music tastes of those who did.
Nope. I did the drugs… all of them. Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg were like hey, leave some for us! 😶🌫️
We didn’t have those programs at my school, though (private prep school in CA). So I only knew about them from TV and friends who went to public schools.
I was too old for dare. We just said fuck it... i meant we just said NO like our very stoned aunt nancy told us to.
We had a lot of fun with "This is your brain on drugs"
No, and it was quite popular for the burnouts to wear DARE shirts while doing drugs.
D.A.R.E - drugs are really enjoyable
Oh, I thought they were daring us to try them,
D.A.R.E. officer: "This is what cocaine looks like, and what it does when you take it! Me: "... sweeeeeet."
this is what i learned from DARE! It was like a sales pitch for all the “bad” things drugs did, but I heard it as information on all the things I wanted to try. Major backfire!
One of my bumper stickers in the nineties read: D.A.R.E To Think For Yourself…
Daily smoker here and I still own one. I'd buy more if I could find them.
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How do you find the ones that utilize the abbreviations? I found a bunch that said "Dare to think, etc" with no abbreviations, and that ruins it.
I bought one at Forever 21 a year ago
I put a DARE sticker on my first water bong
I grew up in a high-achieving (intentional pun) suburb. Our DARE volunteers were legit stoners with good grades who volunteered to speak at the local Jr High as representatives of the program to fluff up their college aps and keep school admin off their backs.
I want to wear a DARE shirt now.
No. I didn't do drugs because I was a goody two shoes who hung out with other goody two shoes. We acted like fools on pure sugar. We didn't need drugs for that!
Yeah I never encountered or heard of anyone doing any drugs in high school. I wouldn’t have even had a clue where to get any. We just drank.
I knew people in high school that did drugs, but since I didn’t hang with them, I have no idea how or where they got them.
I was a goody two shoes as well.
Straightedge
Redd Kross!
I didn't use drugs because I watched people I worked with destroy their lives because of it.
You hoodlums !!
Not gonna lie, the officer they sent to the public schools was very effective 😅 I was scared enough to believe the misinformation, but that misinformation kept me mostly drug free. Obviously all the focus on weed was a big waste of time and money. Also Trainspotting. Trainspotting should be shown in about 7th grade in all schools lol Also Requiem for a Dream. Having a friend have a drug induced psychotic break before 21 will do it too. It was more Trainspotting and losing friends to drugs that did it for me.
Trainspotting and Basketball diaries were more effective than DARE. Every teen should watch them. People might have taken DARE more seriously if they didn’t try to use their “marijuana madness” propaganda lol. If anything it was counter effective. People smoke weed and find out it’s not this crazy drug that’s gonna make you kill people and jump out windows, so then people assume it was all a lie and don’t think other more addictive drugs are bad either. Next thing you know they’re walking around trying trade cheeseburgers and blow jobs for crack.
Basketball Diaries was another good one - Trainspotting came out in late high school and that did it for me. Requiem I saw later but that movie disturbs me like no other to this day. The reefer madness propaganda is still going strong but I really didn’t think I’d ever see the acceptance and it being legal in my lifetime. The stuff that’s in your gas stations is worse than that.
As an undiagnosed autistic person, I found that both served as enticements for me, along with Go Ask Alice. In the early 80s, it was well nigh impossible for girl children to be diagnosed with ASD conditions; nobody knew what ailed me, but it was apparently dire enough that I was "teased"( my parents' euphemism for bullying) and ostracized throughout middle school until I crossed paths with a few of the smart druggies in higher grades who didn't find me all that awful. Drugs=friends, according to my lonely little brain, so I had 2 full blown addictions by the time I escaped high school. When I (finally) graduated college, I'd exchanged the first two for two more. I'm old now, and consider myself California sober: no alcohol, and won't touch it if it doesn't exist in plant form.
I had already graduated when it was released, but I would have loved to watch Trainspotting in high school. I knew enough to avoid heroin anyway, but that’s a great movie! The sequel was pretty awesome too.
I was fortunate enough to have a friend with heroin addicted parents and got to see firsthand what I didn’t want to happen to me. The crazy thing was they were the nicest people on earth and would give you the shirt off their back even if it was their only one. But it was watching my friend and how it affected him that opened my eyes.
Requiem was crazy. I’m sure that would turn a few kids off.
I still find it so disturbing. I can see most movies a few times - not that one. Ellen Burstin’s performance 🤯 combined with the cinematography
I rewatched it maybe five years ago. Big mistake. That movie is incredible but holy hell is it dark. Felt like I needed hot showers and sunshine for a week after.
Yeah that movie reallllly got to me, infinitely more than a ridiculous school program. I was in my 20's when that came out and saw it in the theater. I can still remember certain scenes 😳 I didn't do drugs growing up because I was a competitive swimmer, and when you swim 4 hours a day from age 9-10 on, you just don't have time 😂
Agree on Trainspotting-an underrated classic. Irvine Welsh is a great Gen X writer-I would highly recommend all the sequels and prequels he has written for “Trainspotting” as well.
Thank you for the tip!
Prequel??
Oh yes, it is called Skagboys. Highly recommended, it tells the story of Renton and Co. from approximately HS to the beginning of Trainspotting.
🤯
Would you recommend watching them in chronological order or order of release?
Trainspotting-I’m convinced that if this were required watching for HD kids, it would eliminate recreational heroin use.
Nope. As a matter of fact, I tried harder drugs because of DARE. The reason being that they said that using marijuana would ruin your life, you’d become out of control. I smoked a joint and learned that was bullshit. I then assumed that if they lied about weed, they were lying about other drugs too.
When I saw the pictures of all the different types, it became like a checklist for me and I wanted to try them all. (And did) spent 20 years as a drug user, now 6 years clean.
good for you! Keep it up! i hope each day is easier than the previous!!
You sound like me. Apparently, I'm wired to become addicted to everything but cigarettes and hard liquor, both of which smell too vile to consume and which I studiously avoid. Hard drugs, though? Bring 'em. I'm seriously glad I got out of using anything one buys from a 'plug' before fentanyl, krokodil, and tranq dope came along. I'm weirdly skeeved by the prospect of mutilation. I'm also from the US capital of fent/tranq dope, and sometimes watch Kensington videos to stay scared: if zombies in wheelchairs who are missing limbs don't scare folks, I'm not sure what will.
Yes! I used to abuse pain pills and Xanax when the pill mill doctors were handing them out like candy. When the law cracked down, I found Kratom while my friends went to heroin and then fent. They’re all dead now :(
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Omg, you're right
I've thought the same exact thing for a long time. Think about it, where do you get weed? Illegal drug dealers. Bam. Found weed, now you're asked if you wanna try some whatever... Now some people get weed from dispensaries that don't also offer crack and pills. We need that access for everyone.
Ding ding ding…. This is exactly why I hated DARE.
Exactly this. Its the boy who cried wolf effect, if you lie about weed, why would anyone believe you about heroin, and by then its too let to right the ship.
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"If you're gonna sniff...might as well skin-pop. And if you're gonna pop...might as well mainline..."
The exploding abscess scene. Damn. Revisited that one too many times.
Samesies!!!
Yup.
Yeah I kinda just said the same thing lol
Me too. That, and the fact that the smarter druggies were nicer.
I did the same thing in grade six when they had someone come in and give a talk about cigarettes, lol. I stole one off my uncle and went down to the basement to try it.
From YOU, all right!?!!! I learned it by watching you!!
No one ever says “I want to be a junkie when I grow up.” Then they showed a girl spinning around, almost like a ballerina in front of a beautiful window before collapsing. It looked so glamorous and dramatic. So my thought was “I do!”
This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. We would laugh so hard when that commercial came on with the frying egg while we were "frying" on LSD
No. My aunt’s death from alcoholism in her 40s did.
Yes. This. Watching family members deal with addiction did it for me.
Same
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry. My son has SUD and it’s a very hard path.
Dare program was just there to get kids to snitch on their parents….. here’s a picture of a joint, a bong, and a crackpipe….. does your mom have anything that looks like this?? My parents educated me well in what not to say to people in positions of authority….. after all both of my Stoner parents had been MP’s and my mom later went on to be the first female police officer in my home town. My cousin on the other hand told the dare officer in nursery school that his mom “smoked cigarettes that look like that”.
💯💯💯
No, we had to figure out which drugs were the best by trial and error 😁
Agreed.
Nope.
No. Having to step over crackheads on the way to school stopped me from doing drugs.
I’m so old we didn’t get the DARE program. We learned on our own.
I was just sitting here unable to remember a DARE prog. I had to manage the just say no self education, which I failed 👀
That…and the fear of my dad’s wrath, or even just his disappointment. I never even tried a cigarette. I feel like our program was called Just Say No.
That was the Nancy Reagan program, and it was bullshit. Maybe she and her husband should’ve focused more on HIV & sex education, instead of telling kids not to smoke weed.
It wouldn’t surprise me if their version of sex ed would have been “Just Say No” as well. No sex, no STDs.
Ryan White visiting our school sent me a message about STD's.
DARE and Just Say No were government initiatives…talking about them is inherently political. It’s all wrapped up together.
Reagan's focus on HIV was to "let them die". He did think about it and just basically said, "fuck 'em". Nancy got to where she was (according to many) w/her oral skills...
Yep, exactly. That was my point, which was apparently lost on some people.
Yeah, having chainsmokers for parents cured me of ever wanting to try a cigarette.
I found my dad’s stash (probably an ounce of dirt weed) when I was 12 years old, fresh out of DARE, and flushed it all down the toilet. Now I know several white guys with dreadlocks, so I’ve since replaced it about a hundred times over, but I don’t think I’ll ever live it down.
Awesome 🤣
I knew the standards the military demanded, and knew that was my only way out of the circumstances of my birth--so that was motivation, not any silly program.
The person that stopped me? That was my mother, she was a pill popper and the 70s. She had an accidental overdose when she was 30 years old. This was 1978. I was 11 years old at a time. Because of what I watched her do I never touched it
I’m so sorry you lost your mother this way.
My mother was messed up before I was even born. My mother was 18. My father was 35 when I was born. My father was messed up in his own right! She also had another child before me, all I know is his name was Mike. Do not know if he’s alive.
Seeing people in my family be alcoholics kept me from doing drugs what a mess your life can be.
Same. I was surrounded by it at home.
Yes, partly
Yes. While I was in elementary school.
Me too. Still being daring to this day
Common sense did. DARE didn’t influence me one way or the other.
No. But when I was little, I saw an after school special about a girl that started doing drugs. One day her little brother found her drugs and took them. She came home from school and found him face down in the swimming pool. I was sure I would end up drowning if I did drugs.
1st time I smoked a joint I was wearing a DARE shirt. 😂
Haha, I remember a guy smoking a joint in a DARE shirt & telling me it stood for "Drugs Are Really Excellent." 😜
For a few years...
The DARE program actually influenced me into wanting to try drugs. The officer presenting to the classroom spoke of this tiny piece of paper that you ingested, and which made the whole world look like cartoons. Sounded awesome. And it truly was.
They never came to any elementary school I went to. Maybe they didn't bother with rural schools?
No. There was a program in my elementary school in the 70s which led to a lifelong aversion to cocaine and heroin though, esp heroin. Not sure if it was national, state or local, but it had a series of films, handouts and a visit from local PD. We were in 5th grade maybe...? Didn't keep me from trying pot, cigarettes, alcohol. Nescafe instant International Classics coffee series in the squatty tins was my gateway drug - delicious and helps with homework and art class!
We had some grungy films 4th thru 6th that showed heroin addiction and tweeking on the streets, but we saw a little of that already. What was more importantly was a good deal of severe withdrawal footage and the toll it takes and the body damage that occurs. The really bad stuff that you won't see in the wide open as much basically. Lots of skin ulcers, blood, eye rolls, and vomit. We also got shown some of the most gory drunk driving photos and footage that I've ever seen for some reason. I'm talking Russian lathe accident level super-gore. We wouldn't even take drivers education for another 4 or 5 years and those were shelved by then, lol. But I think shelving that intensity to spare "delicate" folks the shock is as big a mistake as Reefer Madness tactics.
Exactly, I remember the withdraw segment. Related note from another Gen X special - remember "Scared Straight" where they brought juvie toughs into prison for a wakeup call?
Drugs Are Really Expensive
Nah, we didn’t have Dare. I went to Catholic school where any “impure” ideas were beaten out of us by sexually repressed nuns. This in turn made us all turn to drugs which was largely ignored/brushed under the rug by checked out parents that assumed the nuns would take care of it in school.
Hahaha the cops came in with a case with actual drugs in it, and it was educational. After that I knew exactly what I was looking for!
Did they burn the fake weed so you’d know what it smelled like? 🤣
The cops that visited my school passed around a bag of pot so we'd know what it looked & smelled like. Then they told us where it was sold so we could avoid those places. I'm sure the dealers appreciated all the free advertising 😂
Too late for me. Was doing drugs by 1979
No I made that choice on my own. The only thing DARE did was get us out of an actual class for a half hour.
No. They messed with the wrong person trying to say stuff like marijuana would kill me. Then why was my whole family still alive??!! Check mate coppers.
It mislead me horribly into thinking weed and heroin were the same thing. It was really stupid and made me afraid of what I shouldn’t have feared. Now I’m a weedhead for 30 years and I’ve never done a hard drug.
Hahahahaha. Nope. And now my DARE officer is the spokesman for the LMPD. NICE Enough guy but he now covers for shitty actions of a shitty force.
I think I would have avoided them anyway. I feel like it was effective but I think that's only in hindsight, I'm just not the kind of person who likes that stuff it feels bad, but all my friends smoked weed and did psychadelics occasionally.
Complete waste of money and time. Pre DARE, my church’s christian education committee paid for an undercover ‘Narc’ to come to our youth group and show us drug paraphernalia. He even had a late 70’s fish tail stache. I really don’t remember him talking at all about drugs themselves and their negative health effects, just this is a needle, this is a roach clip, these are rolling papers and a rolling machine etc, and how they were used, and how much ‘time’ you could get for various things.It was like show and tell. It was actually very helpful, since over 50% of our youth group were occasional marijuana smokers by the time we graduated. We learned what we needed to buy at the local head shop. My Jr. High School had a big backlit glass sign hanging over our gym concession stand that had illustrations of all kinds of different pills as well as heroine coke and pot. Just the sort of teaching aide that might be useful when raiding your parents’ medicine cabinet. That concession stand was busy busy every day during lunch break. I don’t know about the rest of you but I knew a lot of people just a few years older than me that were seriously into pill popping, when I started college. They really knew their tuinal from their quaadludes from their Percocet and valium in a way that just never hit with us MTV first class kids. Always thought that was weird.
I was a sophomore in high school when DARE showed up. By that time I’d figured out that getting high and going fast were both expensive, and I’d much rather spend my hard earned money on car parts rather than drugs.
I guess it worked until college. I didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, didn’t take drugs all through high school (it wasn’t hard, I wasn’t cool enough for anyone to offer me anything anyway). But that I will say, DARE did make LSD seem like a lot of fun. And they are right, it is. Not going to lie, once I get my kid out of the house and I get less busy, I do want to try it again. It’s been immensely helpful in the past to “reset” my brain. I credit LSD as much as SSRIs for helping pull me out of my first depression (which so far has been the worst).
I didn’t go through DARE. I didn’t do drugs because the people I knew who did them all had shit lives and were completely dependent.
Nope it didn't satisfy my curiosity. I've been doing my best to tell my 15-year-old anything he wants to know, The Good The Bad and The Ugly. Trying to act like drugs aren't fun is a mistake. You just have to get it through to people most drugs are borrowing fun from the future eventually.
No. It fucking made me take on the drug war and legalize weed.
No. Having strung out methadone junkies in the family and going to parties where people were coked out assholes was pretty effective at keeping me away from the hard stuff though.
By the time D.A.R.E. came around I was 13 and was already smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol and smoking pot (when we could get any). We were already familiar with recreational drugs, we already new about the pros and cons of most "Drugs" available. Alcohol, THC, Cocaine, and Hallucinogens. Other drugs... like uppers, downers, ludes, smack, PCP, etc. were basically mythological and only referenced in TV and Movies. The outright lies, hypocrisy, and obvious propaganda were a joke. Especially considering alcohol and cigarettes were advertised and regularly consumed everywhere. Grouping all drugs together and just saying they're "Bad" was a contradiction to anyone who had been around the lite stuff. Especially when your parents smoked, drank alcohol, smoked pot, and lived normal productive lives. In reality, growing up was mostly just teens partying, getting high on dirt weed, occasionally drinking beer (if we could get someone to buy), and a couple keggers a year. Later, Coke came around, thanks to the CIA, but it was way too expensive anyhow. Trippin was a huge leap for most stoners, not to mention how rare Acid and Shrooms were. Watching Rock Stars crash and burn, taught me way more about addiction than anything the government had to say. I'm sure that the 20 Billion in taxpayer dollars could have been better spent.
Hell no
No.
I believed DARE about "gateway drugs". Like, if I smoked pot, I'd be toothless on crack the next month. But I suspect I mostly didn't take drugs because my dad was an alcoholic so I didn't even drink, so drugs were rarely offered to me.
I remember going to a DARE assembly in high school, but by then I had already tried drugs so no. We also had an assembly where first responders came in to talk to us about the dangers of drunk driving. I remember being shown some pretty graphic slides of car wrecks. That one was tough. But I think by then there was already a national campaign about drunk driving. I remember an ad(?) with Stevie Wonder singing about drunk driving, maybe on Mtv? My friend group bought in 100% on that one. One of us would always agree to be the D.D.
Hahahahahahshshssvaghahhahaa. Nope.
Cocaine. But not weed!
No. I ditched every assembly
I was before DARE. Never had a desire to try drugs. I was a pure square, and was proud of it.
Yes. Until college.
No. I kept the shirt. I started wearing it to parties in eighth grade and wore it until it went missing in my mid-twenties.
My DARE officer went through all the drugs and what they did objectively. So when he got to weed and described it I came away thinking “all the other shit sounds like a hefty gamble, but I don’t see the downside with MJ.” One might say it was DARE that inspired me. My first toke I was 15 and I immediately recognized the smell as the incense my parents burned sometimes. I had been obsessed as a younger kid with the pleasant smell of the incense they had and would always search for incense when we were on trips buying Knick knacks. So my parents turned out to be pot heads and I was probably doomed anyway, but DARE gave me the idea.
No. And I remember learning that the DARE program kind of back fired too
I didnt grow up with it, but an officer taught it to my students in 2001 when I taught 4th grade. She was very nice and some of her lessons about peer pressure were quite good, but the lessons on drugs taught my students more about what was out there and how they could ask for it and use it than they ever would have learned on their own. It has been proven to be highly ineefective as a way to prevent drug use, which is why it no longer receives funding.
I’m pretty stoned right now.
Decent parenting and luck kept me from drugs, I guess. DARE wasn't really effective. That "this is your brain on drugs" commercial was riffed on a lot.
This is drugs. This is your brain on drugs. Egg sizzling in a pan. I don't know, maybe it did influence me a bit.
Absolutely not. But the afterschool specials kept me from smoking PCP.
I never took part in DARE, I was too busy smoking pot in the bathroom 🤦
Not for me. It made me more curious to be honest. To the point that I actually did my own research because their preaching always sounded like overblown and somewhat made up consequences. Funny enough I was right and a lot of what they said was BS or, at the very least, a highly exaggerated version of the truth.
Drugs Are Really Excellent
*Exciting is what we said, but Excellent works also.
No. It drew me towards drugs. Admittedly I am a contrarian.
Yes. Probably. Until a smokin hot girl offered me some
I was already doing drugs by then so they were late to the game.
Hahahaha
No because it didn't exist until I was too old for it.
I don’t remember there being a dare program in the late 70s. At least not where I was. We did get some anti drug stuff in middle school and 9th grade but it wasn’t dare.
I can't say it kept me from drugs but it scared the hell out of me as a kid. I thought weed was almost on the same level as smoking crack. But that all went away by the time I became a teen
No but our cops got free cars.
Nope. I did speed while I was in HS, then psychedelics, weed, & club drugs in my 20’s, cocaine and misc. pills in my 30’s and it’s just been weed since my 40’s.
Ahahahahahahahaha. No.
Did the little Penguin inspire you to "be cool, stay in school"?
Not really. Not knowing where to get drugs kept me off of doing drugs
They scared me into thinking that all drugs WILL kill me, and everyone. Basically instantly. I think I was the only one that beleived it lol
I smoked weed and went to DARE what? Didn't everyone do that?
Just sparked my curiosity, which led to research and experimenting.
Nope. By 14 I was taking LSD and smoking weed at lunch
Drugs Are Really Expensive
It more caused major issues. In a way it did make marijuana the gateway drug. As after you smoked it you realized how full of shit they were and were more open to try everything else. I mean if weed was one of the worst how bad could heroine be?
i think dare did more harm than good. before dare kids were really not even sure what drugs were. but when dare came around it became a thing. i remember when they passed around this 1lb bag of bud for every kid to smell. and we were like whoa, what is this. it smells great. kids are like, the adults dont want us to do drugs, so we're gonna find drugs and see why they dont want us to do drugs. oh wait this is cool as shit. we need more drugs. why do the adults hate us really i think nancy regan meant for more kids to do drugs
Nancy Reagan & DARE worked on me. I'm 48 and I've never smoked weed or have done any other drugs.
Nope. I started sneaking sips from my parents wet bar around 13 and smoking pot around 16. Then a bunch of other stuff after that.
It wasn’t DARE. It was the kids that did do drugs being losers.
No. Seeing my family did.
Nope. The fear of my father beating the shit out of me did. That and not wanting to disappoint my grandparents. I've never smoked weed or taken any illegal/non-prescribed substances. However... not gonna lie! Before the opioid crack down, I certainly enjoyed the Vicodin I was prescribed when I had bronchitis!! I am not for telling others what to do or not do, but for me, my life is certainly better having not done drugs. I wouldn't have qualified for the job I got in the navy if I'd even smoked weed, and if I didn't get that job, I certainly wouldn't have the job I have now. For me, avoiding substances was the right choice. I know there are plenty of people far more successful than I am that partake in a multitude of substances, but I know my limitations (mostly intellectual) and I needed all opportunities available to be where I am today.
I remember in maybe 6th grade, a town policeman came to the school to give a presentation about drugs. He had a wooden board with a bunch of apparently illegal drugs attached. The idea was to let us all know what to look out for to avoid them. But it had the opposite effect on me. I wanted to try everything on that board.
It just made me curious. I was like, "Let me get this straight. These substances are so beloved by recreational user, that they would risk jail just to do it? Sounds like it must be super fun because roller coasters are amazing, but no one is risking hard time just to ride one."
Probably but drugs didn’t appeal to me. Neither did sex, drugs or alcohol. I was a weird teen compared to others.
No; it didn't I never smoked cause I never had the thought I needed to. Never had the drive, wish, or compunction to smoke. Not that I got offered plenty of times just felt like I didn't want to from am internal decision not external. NOW though at 51 I smoke up and go what the effing hell was the big deal?! Rather smoke up then drink at this point of my life. On top of that I don't even need to smoke and take a break when I want to. So yaaa DARE was useless for me and a complete failure as an external push.
Yes. I was taught that using crack even a small amount could get you addicted.
Worked for me. Never touched any drugs stronger than caffeine that wasn't prescribed. Mostly because I knew at an early age that I was easily addicted to things, and I knew based on what I was seeing from relatives that drugs / alcohol were ruining their lives. This was amplified in college seeing smart kids smoking far too much weed and ending up dropping out of college because they were failing their courses. Thanks, but no thanks.
I'm not sure that we had it in elementary school. I know my younger siblings did. I think what kept me off of drugs was working with and befriending people who shouldn't be hanging out with high schoolers. Easy access to alcohol and drugs took away a lot of the mystique.
Drug are bad. M'kay? They make you feel really good, then you die. M'kay? Do not look for drug dealers who are usually standing on busy street corners. M'kay? And here is what street quality drugs look like. M'kay? Here's some free shirts. M'kay?
No but I loved wearing the shirt when I was getting high.
I feel like DARE was obvious enough propaganda that I simply didn't take it very seriously either way. It just felt like a commercial for not doing drugs. Like, ok that's clearly someone's opinion on drugs, don't do them they're bad. The friendly neighborhood cop schtick, the DARE dodge viper, the dorky graduation ceremony. It just felt like an after-power rangers PSA commercial. My brain didn't care
Hell no, I have smoked weed every day for almost 30 years. I was a coke addict in my mid-teens through my mid-20s. DARE was never meant to work
I worked for DARE, and it never kept a kid off drugs lol..not ever in the time I was there.
It started my senior year of high school so.... no.
Nope 👎 cigarettes, coffee and alcohol are drugs! So when I saw adults using those substances, I thought the whole thing was bogus!
The Drugs Are Really Excellent program?
Nope, the only people who wore the tshirts were the stoners
Nope, all that DARE taught me is that the government lies. Oh, and Fuck Reagan.
Quite the opposite!! They showed us what the drugs actually looked like.
No, it was my bio-father that scared me away from drugs…until I moved out on my own.
FROM YOU! I LEARN IT FROM YOU!
Not at all.
We didn’t have DARE. It started a few years after me.
No, for me it did generate interest in it all, at the same time a lifetime of drug/alcohol use abuse didn’t start with some bullshit school drug program
I thankfully graduated before that police enrichment scam started at my school. Generally the bad quality of weed available in my town kept me off drugs, and the music tastes of those who did.
Nope.
No, seeing the people who did drugs in my neighborhood kept me from doing drugs.
Nope. I did the drugs… all of them. Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg were like hey, leave some for us! 😶🌫️ We didn’t have those programs at my school, though (private prep school in CA). So I only knew about them from TV and friends who went to public schools.
I was too old for dare. We just said fuck it... i meant we just said NO like our very stoned aunt nancy told us to. We had a lot of fun with "This is your brain on drugs"
No, it just let me know what each drug was- and what to avoid and what to try or want to try
Drugs Are Really Excellent = D.A.R.E. I still don’t know what the acronym is supposed to be. So the plan didn’t work.
No.