Grrrrrr...

[mcctatas]

So my 11 year old daughter is in 5th grade and currently going through the DARE program. I had no idea what a vile piece of crap this was until she told me that they were discussing what happens to people who use drugs and were given examples like "A boy was drinking and was molested by a pedophile" and "A high school girl who was a cheerleader, A student etc. got drunk at a party, wound up pregnant and probably will never go to college". I'm not saying that these things are untrue, but it seems like a horrible way to teach kids why they shouldn't drink or do drugs. Not only (at least in the first case for sure) does it seem an awful lot like blaming the victim, but it's all just scare tactics...I want to pull her out of the program, the hubby says not to make a big deal, she has us to help her figure it out, but I am seriously pissed! :grr:
Then I find this:http://www.druglibrary.org/Schaffer/Library/daremenu.htm

[Warpy]

1. No right winger has ever designed any program that "dare"d to

tell kids the truth about drugs including cigs and alcohol and I doubt they're capable of doing so.

Parents are left to do the research to counteract the flood of sanctimonious disinformation if the kids will listen to it after being propagandized all day.

Eventually the kids realize they've been had, and that's why this stupid program, as well as the stupid abstinence only program, never work past the age of 16 or so.

I'd rather people tell kids the truth so the kids will know what to look out for.

[SoCalDem]

9. Soccer is the best "tobacco deterrent" there is.

Kids who have to run , non-stop for 90 minutes don;t want anything to do with tobacco :)

[Warpy]

16. You'd think so, but how long are they on the field?

Wheezing on the field is bad form, but no kid who's been addicted to tobacco off it is going to make the connection between sucking poison into his lungs and being unable to breathe during a footy game.

Plus, if they aren't stupid enough to smoke it, they'll always chew it.

Some kids will always be drawn to tobacco like moths to flames, flies to poop, and whatever hideous self destructive analogy is out there. That ridiculously expensive antidrug programs try to lie them out of it doesn't make a difference.

[BlackVelvet04]

2. Scare tactics worked so well with us......

NOT.

[ret5hd]

5. I was PROMISED flashbacks!!!

Wheree's my free highs???

[karlrschneider]

3. I thought that ..."program" was dissolved years ago.

Apparently not.
:eyes:

[waiting for hope]

4. My son is in Kindergarten

and haven't gotten to those "wonderful, Reganisk" programs yet. I hear the Sex Ed one is pretty "enlightening" as well. But, my son does have a gene pool that includes alcoholism and drug addiction and that scares the hell out of me. Neither myself or my husband drink, been dry for over a decade but there are many on my husband's side that we may see in the grave soon, one brother was buried in 1997. My plan of action with that - and please correct/advise me if I'm wrong - is to take him to Louisiana and to the grave(s) (actually tombs) sites and give him the cold hard facts - it will kill you, one way or another and if it may cause the deaths of innocent others. I had heard that there was a program in the 70's up in New York (I think..) where they took junior and high school students to an actual jail and let them meet with some of the inmates. Scared Straight? I think it was. They said it was highly effective but for some reason they discontinued it.

Wish you all the best with that - I know it's hard and the main thing is to keep an eye on what kind of friends she's hanging with.

:hi:

[azurnoir]

6. In our area Dare was also

"turn in your family and friends" program. The cops would show kids pot and ask if they had ever seen it before, and if so where and what did they do about it or things like do you know what drugs are? have you seen them? where? what kind?. Keep in mind these were little kids. I don't know if they still use these tactics but it is something to keep in mind.

[rebel with a cause]

17. I was just about to post about this

When my son was in D.A.R.E., about eighteen years ago, one of his friends (a neighborhood boy) turned his family in for smoking pot. There was an investigation and no charges came out of it, but can you imagine what that nine year old went through with his parents for what he had done. I did not care for his parents, but drugs had nothing to do with it, they were a bit abusive to the children in my eyes. But I did believe him about the drugs, and thought what kind of message did this send to a child. He did what he was told was the right thing and then he was punished for it, not his parents. A nine year old should never be pressured into turning their parents in for drug use.

A funny story, or sad in a way, about this boy and his sister. I use to get up early Easter morning and hide colored eggs all around our yard. I would then go in and watch from my kitchen window as they would come over from their house (they lived behind us, catty cornered two houses down and across an alley/street.) and take some of the eggs. After they had finished, I would get my kids up to go Easter egg hunting. It happened every year that they lived there. They knew my routine and I learned theirs. I usually did about four dozen eggs so it did not matter if they took some of them.

[MichiganVote]

7. My kids did Dare but I don't recall those examples

[uppityperson]

8. I guess she shouldn't be a cheerleader then. My child did DARE but I don't remember

specific examples but he thought it was pretty lame.

[Fovea]

10. My friends' daughter was screwed up by DARE.

She is like that child in 1984 who rats out his parents. She was screaming at guests if they brought unsmoked tobacco in the house while she was in elementary school.

Now, as an young adult, she seems militant, but dependent. Her parents have advanced degrees, she hopes to be a cop.

[Stephanie]

11. It's SEXUAL Scare Tactics

They're using sex to frighten the kids. It's more than just anti-drug indoctrination.

[12string]

12. D.A.R.E.

You know what D.A.R.E. really stands for.....Drugs Are Really
Expensive.

[laylah]

13. Both of my girls

went through that program. The older one won an "award", the other was asked to leave because she questioned the hypocrisy of it all i.e. medical benefits of pot, no mention of cigs, etc. I agree with your hubby, keep your daughter informed and maybe, if she is lucky, she too will be asked to leave because of her intelligence and lack of fear of speaking out.

Jenn

[Eric J in MN]

14. A study found that kids who take "DARE" are more likely to do drugs...

...than kids at similar schools without "DARE."

Probably because knowing more about drugs makes the kids who took "DARE" feel they can use them safely.

[Midlodemocrat]

18. DARE was pretty much discredited about 8 years ago.

Exactly for the reasons you state. When I was in grad school in 1985, there was a new program called "Here's looking at you, 2000" that really showed some promise in the area of drug abuse awareness and prevention, but it was allegedly more expensive to implement. It involved creating a peer teaching group that would then in fact create another, and so on, and so on, so that the education about drug use was ongoing and not a 45 minute program 2 times a month.

[ganeshji]

15. DARE helped me.

DARE was instrumental in teaching me about drugs that I would not likely have known existed otherwise at such a young age. They were also very effective in teaching me all about the most effective "delivery mechanisms" for said drugs. The officer assigned to us was extremely thorough in his description of how to get high and where and who you were likely able to get the drugs from around town. It was an enlightening educational experience.

[Eric J in MN]

19. Did you seriously do drugs on account of DARE? NT

NT