5ywjdPumpkinPrincess
10727
255
7
Jul 28, 2025 3:56 PM
5ywjdPumpkinPrincess
10727
255
7
Snooj
And gave me a free shirt to wear while doing drugs.
Coolulder
It was also used to make children spies for the police and even turn in their parents.
PowerPedant
DARE made drug use MORE likely, they knew it, and it wasn't really supposed to change that. It's a wild story: https://youtu.be/LzrGCk-F7FY
psstuphere
When I was 14 my town had the most drug addicts per capita in Sweden. So I heard a lot of talks, got a lot of information, they really thought talking would solve the problem. In reality it was an incredibly small town and there were like 5 people on hashish and amphetamenes
USvette1
D.A.R.E. stands for Drugs Are Really Expensive.
DidItForScience
They never told me where to get drugs. WTF?!
Telemapus
This is why it's important to pay attention in school.
5ywjdPumpkinPrincess
https://media3.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTY1YjkxZmJldWRhd2I3M3JvaGZ6cGJoZGpiczhsa2N4bm9xZGtmd3RwbzVzZWQxciZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/QMZpnb79N5BN0wsSM3/200w.mp4
VowelShiftBetch
My one government conspiracy theory that I allow myself is that they used DARE as a model against educating children on things. The creators/perpetrators of the program knew, with supporting data, that DARE didn't reduce drug use. But they kept doing it, so that when the government wants to start cutting things like sex education, or whatever else they want, they can go, "Well educating kids about drugs didn't work. Better stop teaching them about X too."
carbonar1
I did the drugs. All of them. Not sure if I'm gonna see my 54th birthday on 9/11.
5ywjdPumpkinPrincess
https://media2.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTY1YjkxZmJlN3VpbDNzMWFrYmdkb3RuN3M5bWNpOWlhZ2J1ODJreXB2aWdrcTcwayZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/sadG93yjJ88i0DcGPH/200w.mp4
carbonar1
Hammerdiddlestrokemyfiddle
CHUPPL just made a very, very eye opening documentary on this. Highly recommend you all go check him out on YT if you haven't. It's worse than not working and narcing on parents. We're talking police spying for the LAPD on an international level for one megalomaniac kind of bad. Keeping two million dossiers on people to use as dirt to control them and then refusing government orders to destroy or hand them over, kind of bad.
InfocalypseRising
"All your friends are doing drugs, all the cool kids are doing drugs. People will call you a loser if you don't do drugs. But um, don't...don't do them."
taez555
Don’t forget the drug briefcase. Like a child showing you there butterfly collection, each drug had its own little compartment with glass cover and label.
ParaBellumOutfitters
Imagine the appeal to ADHD/'tism folks who...[checks notes] love little baubles/have OCD adjacendies and poor dopamine regulation to begin with :p
ActionJohnnie
Got my own now. Just don’t show it to kids.
nognomwifey
My kids went to a YMCA summer camp and went through a DARE program. I was livid.
wannasee
First time I ever saw a "Marijuana cigarette" was at elementary school DARE program. Lol
QuitLookinAtMineAim
They couldn't even come up with anything negative to say about some of them.
"Well, this one makes you have so much fun that you want to do it again. And, it turns out, if you do that a whole bunch, the worst part is that you need a little more than before, so it's kinda expensive... Anyway, don't do that"
Cultistchan
I remember them talking about how "Every year some one just doodles in the booklets and makes everyone smoke and have blood shot eyes" and how I right away did that as soon as they told me about it.
5ywjdPumpkinPrincess
https://media0.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTY1YjkxZmJlazlod3NmeTk2bTZ3YmtiZDc4bG12Y25nYXBuMnA2djg3dWx0Z2I5bCZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/l0ExayQDzrI2xOb8A/200w.mp4
LurkingSarcasm
They taught me I needed to try weed first as it was the gateway to different drugs
nclu
There's some speculation that the gateway effect goes something like, "The government lied to me about weed, so maybe they lied about the other drugs too"
IHasSnout
Every drug is a gateway drug
trasneoir
azgrak1
I worked with a kid just out of high school. Some of the guys introduced him to weed. He then proceeded to try everything he could get ahold of. Fired at 9 months. Last I heard he was selling his ass, living on the street, to afford his heroin habit. It’s not everyone’s journey but was definitely his.
TheLovelessHummingbird
I tried a weed gummy. I'm so numb and apathetic that it made me dizzy which made me annoyed and even more apathetic. That day I also discovered alcohol also only makes the floor move and that's it. My mood remained the same. It's ok, friends didn't notice so they had fun. Now I 100% believe the other drugs would make me feel like shit, I just know it.
Them3OtherGuys
I was one of the HS nerds who went to elementary classrooms to give DARE speeches with cops. At least the cops were small town enough to keep the speeches to mostly, "stay away from cigarettes."
I spent the next ten years after graduation stoned out of my mind.
GreenMnM
It was all bullshit! I was lied to! Not ONCE has anyone given me free drugs. Not a single friggin time. I had to spend my money on it all
5ywjdPumpkinPrincess
https://media1.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTY1YjkxZmJlbDB4NGZpeG1rMDlzaG96OWpueG5wM28zeGNxa2M0amRhem16dnlmcCZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/SeKA9VRYF47AfPQcfK/200w.mp4
Twinklepot
And if you want candy just knock on the back door of any white van, apparently.
5ywjdPumpkinPrincess
Oh yes this one! Lol
GwendolynCorvid
They dont even talk about the real dangers of drugs
TheGriffin
With Ronny Reagan's fursona?
gtotherizzle
I'm still pissed that I was never offered free drugs to say no to.
FlaminkoFactor
Theres pretty liberal drug use in my city, and the spice flows in some of the music/art scenes I'm involved with. For me, a more effective DARE class would have taught me which specific drugs I actually should say no to.
thisisjunk
I get offered weed occasionally. But, I live in Washington, so I can just go and ...buy it if I want.
TaiPan87
I got 2nd in the "DARE" essay content. I won a jacket. First place got a freaking Nintendo.
Needles to say, I went on to try drugs.
FlaminkoFactor
I distinctly remember the cop who taught the DARE program in our school. It was public knowledge in our town that he beat his wife. It made the drugs feel even better knowing it went against his teachings.
Telemapus
Meanwhile here in Australia all we got was a giraffe teaching us about periods inside a van.
5ywjdPumpkinPrincess
https://media2.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTY1YjkxZmJlaGpubnQ2ZG4ybmU3N3p0OHJsbmh4cnp6MmY3OGhtdTljZmxoY3dkNSZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/smrvh5WMQpJWk7gRpL/200w.mp4
Telemapus
This is the Life Education Van, a large van that kids go into, class by class, and there are audiovisual setups in there and a transparent human body, and a kindly person who is like half-nurse, half-kids' TV presenter, teaches you all about... you know... life. And that. Looks like they have rebranded to "Life Ed." Huh, didn't know. https://lifeed.org.au/
Telemapus
Where so many American states said "teachers shouldn't teach kids that stuff, they're not qualified", Australia said "huh, good point, we should make some kind of organisation that tours schools and is staffed by experts, to teach the kids that stuff."
Erumun
i was told drugs where everywhere. well i still haven't found any and even if i did i aint sharing.
5ywjdPumpkinPrincess
https://media0.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTY1YjkxZmJlb3RiMjJ6aGY2b2dteHI2OTI4ZjNvcXk0YnY1ZWQzcG0yMGhyOXZlbSZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/jSWLqqAWpKmUVGuOqh/200w.mp4
Kreviathan
It's worse than you think. A) they knew that the program made children MORE likely to try drugs, and B) it was mostly used to gain the trust of children so they'd tell cops if their parents used drugs.
gayvillian
The DARE program has been repeatedly shown in studies to be usless or even more harmful. But it brings a ton of federal money into police stations, so they ignored the studies.
doctorId
It was literally started by a politician who was taken to court and told he wasn't allowed to use subordinates and police as his own personal spy ring, and DARE was created out of a loophole he found in the law and he used it to get cops to spy on kids at school. It also had a board of directors made up of a bunch of rich people who cried about the poor children to get donations and then embezzled most of the money.
alcamar
Narcs
aflarge
the DARE performances were such absolute cringe that I'm pretty sure they're why, to this day, compelled audience participation STILL makes my skin crawl.
It's not even a fear of public speaking or anything. I haven't cared about judgment from strangers since I was knee-high, it was just so.. LAME.
kitenkatt
All I remember was them doing a dramatic dance to Turn Around
swedeonamoose
In Sweden they didnt do that shit, they just got someone whos life had turned to absolute shit from drug usage and had them talk about it until all us kids were borderline crying.
InkyBlinkyPinkyAndClyde
My highschool did that with AIDS, brought in a guy who was dying of it to talk to us about it. This was in Ontario Canada in the 90s.
aflarge
The thing that ACTUALLY kept me from drinking(until I got to college, anyway) was that when I was a boy, my dad once let me try a sip of his beer and it was the grossest thing I had ever tasted.
HitandRyan
Similar story here. School did a can and bottle drive back in 2002. I managed to source a ton of them from a local hunting club, but I had to spend like a week rinsing them out. Smelling old beer for that long is probably why to this day I’m not a beer guy.
Kasemoch
That sounds pretty effective, did it work?
swedeonamoose
Far as i know noone in our class became an addict.
aliyada
In the US, we had someone like that come as a speaker into one of my classes, but it turned into "and then I found The Lord" for a full hour.
aflarge
Oh my god, I would have been THE most insufferable kind of atheist if I had that in my childhood. Like I'm still an atheist, but it would have been part of my IDENTITY if anyone had ever actually tried to push religion on me, especially in that context.
aflarge
(What i mean by that is i don't believe in any gods, but it doesn't really matter to me, it just seems like nonsense. I'm happy to talk and even argue about it, I find the whole subject fascinating, but only with someone who actually wants to have that talk/argument)