#D.A.R.E.

[yourgirlmary]

burn the witch the witch is dead burn the witch just bring me back her head softer, softest - hole

Courtney Love at the Drug Abuse Resistance Eduction (D.A.R.E.) Benefit, in 1994.

[itsthevioletqueen]

Mufalooloo™

[perrysoup]

Pretext: This deals with Hamas and the US program DARE. Some of you may not like the analogy I am going to use, but frankly you need to think on it too, especially if you grew up in the US.

Long post.

So, story time. I grew up in America, I was born and raised here. Part of American schooling (in Fifth Grade, gotta get them agreeing with a police state early) is a system called DARE you are taught of and by, standing for Drug Abuse Resistance Education. In that (absolute dogshit pro-police anti-addict (NOT anti-addiction, anti-ADDICT)) lesson, a key thing we are taught is that Weed is a gateway drug. If you smoke weed you WILL do crack. You WILL do heroin. You WILL sell your body for the weed addiction. That drug dealers and users and mean and hurtful and will abuse you constantly. Again, this is regardless of the drug. I am not speaking about actual horrors committed on people who are having their addiction taken advantage of. Those are real and happen.

That's not hyperbole btw, feel free to look at your own kids DARE stuff if you have them in that age group.

Anyway, I believed it. Others may not have, but I did. We had to sign things saying we would never do drugs, never drink and drive (which they never defined and I'll tell a fun story at the end about), never do ANYTHING really.

So time goes on, 5th grade me turns into 6th grade to 7th, rinse and repeat til I am a Sophomore in High School (Grade 10). And on a whim, I was offered to smoke a bong in a car in a SUPER white SUPER "well off" neighborhood. And I did. I actually first had to ask how to do it, and shocker, the dude was super nice and friendly. He didn't judge me or anything, he was happy to show me. My inexperience was not a thing to laugh at to him. (One Question raised about what DARE talked about. Technically two since "well off" people never did such a thing, and because of that they are "well off")

He also never offered me any other drugs. Hell he didn't even offer pot. If you wanted it you could ask and buy from him, but he wasn't pushing it. (Two questions raised about what DARE talked about).

I also never craved other drugs. I had seen the effects of heroin on some of my family, so maybe that was a part of knowledge I had and other didn't, but no one I even knew pushed me on it. Shit I hung out with people happily doing coke and sharing it, but ONLY if you asked. No one tried to make you do it. (Three now)

Finally, after discussing it with my parents, I find out that my mother was an on and off pot smoker, and my dad wasn't a drug user, but he didn't disparage it, he just preferred alcohol as his drug of choice. (Which was ACTUALLY a major issue in our family, not that DARE seemed to care)

And in the end, it comes clean that everything they told us about Pot was a lie. Everything they said was either full out false, or left out convenient details that explained WHY. Not that they were "worthless junkies" (actual phrase used).

That started some of my questioning about what we were taught and told by authority figures that had a position of power to hold would tell us anything to nod and agree with them, regardless of the facts.

I didn't think about what other stuff that could affect though. 9/11 happened when I was in 6th grade, and as many other Americans can attest, we were riled up into a fervor to support the troops, that "they hated our freedom", that terrorists were gonna get you unless you pledge your support undying to the United States. And I believe that for way to long. It took me much longer that it should have to see the flaws and lies that were told to us over and over and over by people we were told we could trust.

So how does this relate to Hamas?

As more and more is becoming clear about the lies and abuse we endure, and the lies and abuse we have seen especially by Israel, it is fair to ask I believe, is Hamas the bad guy? Did we take the statements of "Terrorist Group" as fact and "Rebellion against Annihilation" as bullshit?

I don't know. I'm not saying that as a cop out, I am saying I LITERALLY do not know. I have been told the Western story over and over and over and I don't know the truth.

But what if we were wrong? What if it was another lie that was done to make us angry at the wrong people?

This is the issue that arises. After a certain amount of government lies, tricks, torture, abuse domestic and foreign, can we trust what the government told us? They had a chance to tell me the truth when I was young, and they instead chose to lie to me, to treat me as something they could mold into their sick image of a "good citizen" instead of another human.

As I said, I don't know enough about Hamas to say if the labels are wrong, and I encourage everyone (Pro AND Anti) to share information so we can all be more educated.

But we have been lied to many times.

---------------------------------------

Drinking and Driving story: As I said, DARE left out details that made things easier to understand, I think on purpose. One of those that could just be in the "fucking stupid to not clarify" was drinking and driving. So after that class, that weekend, my father and I go to McDonalds, and get our usual.

And then my father *gasp* started driving while sucking on his straw.

I was distraught, my OWN father drinking and driving? And I confronted him on it, and his could only look at me bewildered and say "Son, that's for alcohol, not Coke" and that's how I learned what drink meant in that context.

[cokiemace]

Victoria Justice

[garlicbreadslice]

I want to buy this DARE hoodie but I don’t know how to make it clear that I’m wearing it ironically… I have the hardest life 😞

[queer-boo-radley]

[bizarrobrain]

"Marijuana" by McGruff the Crime Dog

[petrifiedchild]

hey guys wanna be friends i'll give you a first hand view of why D.A.R.E. is important and how drugs ruin your life and everybody's life you know lol

[absolutelybatty]

If you did, please tag the year you were born.

[i3oobzz]

after i passed outXD

[xmybipolarmindx]

Guest Post: Follow My Journey by Jea Ward

Dear Jim, It’s taken me a long time to get around to writing this letter. I’ve been putting it off for years, to be honest, I suppose that I was waiting for you to get in touch with me. I’m writing because I have questions. I have complaints. People like to say that you can’t miss something that you’ve never had, but that’s a lie. I’ve never had you in my life like you should have been all these…

[roaenexists]

i don't need MARIJUANA to get high i just STAND UP QUICKLY

[dontsweatthefresh]

(ICECOLDBISHOP)

ICECOLDBISHOP - D.A.R.E. (Official Music Video)

[rkreid]

Retro D.A.R.E. Fanny Pack

Popular 90s gifts can be a simple as fanny packs.  Not only are they a great way to show off your love for vintage fashion, but it can also be used for practical purposes. With its convenient design and fun prints, this accessory is sure to make anyone feel cool and stylish.

[jimmyisageek]

I have a very vivid memory of my 5th-grade class singing along loudly to ‘Thong Song’ by Cisco while on the school bus during a class field trip to the Zoo.

This is the same group of kids who voted ‘What’s Your Fantasy’ by Ludacris as our class’ favorite song.

We also managed to “rewrite” Nelly’s ‘Ride Wit Me’ to be a drug-free anthem and performed it at a D.A.R.E. Assembly.

“If you want to go and take a ride with me, in a drug-free car that’s a Benz-E // Oh, why must I feel this good? (Hey, drugs waste your money!)”

We were Kidz Bop before Kidz Bop.

[betterbooktitles]

"I’m certain I’m not the only millennial who feels we as a nation have taken a dizzying turn when it comes to drugs. I remember a uniformed police officer showing up once a week in 5th Grade (a year before Sex Ed) to explain how to avoid buying and taking drugs. Luckily, I already knew the dangers of the drug trade because I had seen The Usual Suspects. I knew cocaine was a bad thing to buy, sell, or steal, especially from a drug kingpin. The D.A.R.E. program, however, let me know how important it was to say no to anything fun, including alcohol. At least until I understood a little algebra first. We did role-playing exercises where we walked one by one toward the portly police officer and he casually asked if we wanted to hit a mimed joint with him. All we had to do was say “no” and walk to the other side of the room, defying the only rule I knew about improv. We wrote essays about how important it was to preserve our pristine bodies and minds, obviously unsullied since we had yet to take the class teaching us how puberty was going to defile them both. I’m still mad that my friend Nicole’s essay beat mine in a contest, and she got to read hers in front of the whole school all because she had the benefit of an older brother who took too much acid and sat in her room all night talking about why the existence of light proved God was real. My essay about a time I saw my friend’s dad drink a beer and then drive his truck somewhere was also good! We signed pledges to enter the new millennium drug-free. We took the red pencils that said “Friends Don’t Let Friends Do Drugs” and sharpened all of them down to say “Let Friends Do Drugs,” “Friends Do Drugs,” “Do Drugs,” and simply “Drugs.” Despite that little rebellious act, my friends and I spent a solid six months swearing we’d never put any harmful substance into our bodies besides every form of candy available.

Imagine how I feel now as a D.A.R.E. graduate becoming my dad’s drug dealer. It’s less thrilling than I thought it would be. Between my father’s warning not to hang around one specific neighborhood in Cleveland as a kid and nearly every TV show about drugs, I thought I’d always be buying marijuana from an intimidating dude who definitely had a gun and would use it immediately if he thought I was wearing a wire. Instead, I now buy marijuana from a well-lit storefront that looks like the Apple Store. I’ve even gone to a place where a guy with an iPad explained what each available strain would do to me. I buy what sounds good with all the confidence of a man pointing at items on a menu written in a language he can’t read. I put it all in a cardboard box. I place a book on top. I mail the box to my dad from my local post office. I tell myself the book is to hide the contraband crossing state lines, but in truth, the book is what clears my conscience. I want to send my dad something edifying while also sending him the drug that all of America worried would make me unable to read if I tried it once. The unrequested book is a red herring to distract from the vice, like when you were young and didn’t want to buy condoms outright at the store so you cushioned them between a pack of peanut M&Ms and a magazine. Hmm, what else did I need, — right, while I’m here — might as well pick up a few condoms.

Right as marijuana becomes legal in most states, I’m about done with the drug. I’ve had three good times on edibles, and one of them was when I felt nothing and fell asleep at 9:30 PM. I’m flabbergasted that my dad likes edibles. He seems to be a man free of anxiety. Case in point, I once brought him some THC lozenges to our summer holiday in Chautauqua, and around dinner time I told him “You might want to only take half of what I gave you” to which he replied, “I took it hours ago.” He was stoned and no one noticed.

While I’m stuck in my head, stoned or sober, wondering why I didn’t take some acting gig 15 years ago, wondering if I’ll ever make enough money, worrying I’m doing everything wrong including in this moment as I write this sentence, my dad is enjoying himself.

Judith Grisel, the author of Never Enough: The Neuroscience And Experience of Addiction, describes using marijuana as throwing “a bucket of red paint” on your brain. She was approaching the stimulant clinically in terms of how it differed from the laser focus of other drugs (THC reacts with many receptors in the brain, cocaine focuses on one), but now every time I smoke, I think of the red paint metaphor. While other people seem able to crank an entire joint and do insanely complicated stuff like function at their jobs, I am reduced to a gelatinous blob, on top of which my eyes and brain are navigating a dream state that, like many dreams, isn’t all that interesting the next day. Mostly, I get high and can’t decide what I want to watch on TV or what video game I want to play, I realize how hungry I am, and then I fall asleep with cereal still stuck to my teeth. Pot, for me, is like the squid ink hitting the screen in Mario Kart: I can still see where I’m going, but everything gets a little harder to do, and the panicked half-blindness makes everything slightly more chaotically fun."

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