Comment by heimatau | Hacker News Reader

Comment by heimatau | Hacker News Reader

As a kid during a lot of this, in the 1990s, I felt DARE was stupid and pointless. It did nothing to discourage my peers nor myself from drugs. I did miss out on some cool helicopter tours and some military expos but other than that DARE was seen as a 'stupid meaningless waste of time' according to myself and peers.

Maybe if it wasn't a top down approach, it might've worked. Like if they had my peers dramatize drug related pressure (not watching a video of my 'peers' [they were more like tacky uncool peers, by anyones standard]). Also, not having cops 'teach' it. I didn't feel educated. I felt bad for the cop, as they struggled to convince us that drugs were bad (many of my classes were just anti-cops, so we gave each cop a difficult time, just out of spite). My peers are among the average Americans, not a rough bunch, just anti-authoritarian. :)

For balance, upon writing this post, I'd like to suggest a solution (not just criticize DARE). Have specific teachers teach about drugs. Just like sex educators aren't generalists, they focus on teaching the one subject, sex. Let's have drug educators. I know sex educators get a lot of flack but that flack is falling out of fashion because sex educators are effective. Let's do that for drugs. It could educate many people on the hard drugs that are extremely difficult to quick after one dose (crack, heroin, etc). Educating kids on what's out there, is empowering. Hopefully we can see a healthy change in our system.

I was a teenage DARE ambassador, taught younger kids how uncool drugs were. But that wasn't nearly as effective as the time I drew a caricature of the class's newest drug user and a friend made 50 copies of it. Major fireworks, major drama, and all adults who wanted to know were now in the know. I may have almost destroyed that poor thing's life, but in doing so I believe I found a faster-acting solution than DARE, at least for kids who didn't want their parents to know.

It seems to me that the best way is simply to severely punish any kid caught taking drugs. And do hair tests to make sure they're caught.

You do realize that every President of the US in the last 2 decades has smoked pot and in some cases used harder drugs, right? Oppressive police state tactics are rarely a good idea, whether dealing with kids or otherwise.

that's...uncool. most people grow out of drug experimentation naturally and never look back. you might have actually fucked that person's life up, compared to if you had done nothing. that's no solution, that's just plain mean.

Tongue in cheek solution. No one should do this. The fireworks enveloped us all.

Your example made me smile. Unmoderated peer pressure is more effective than DARE. Should you be getting all that grant money? We can only dream.

I want to say something in my defense but I think it'll just make it worse. Hook, line and sinker.

Not as uncool as smoking green, according to DARE. :P

As a kid, hearing that kids were taking drugs, I always wondered what I was missing out on. The one thing that didn't make me want to take drugs were the ads saying "most kids don't smoke or do drugs".

But then everything changed when I went to college in my mid-20s and developed a strong cannabis habit. It gave purpose to my life. I'm still a daily smoker, years later, with a fulfilling job and good friends.

I live and work in the emerald triangle now. There are so many stories like yours that it's more of a nuanced discussion: For whom, and at what age, is how much of which variant too much? :P

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