Poll: Do you feel you were lied to about Drugs in D.A.R.E., or other programs in school?

[CrysisMcGee]

I myself am D.A.R.E. graduate, and I still remember everything I was taught. Including all the things that weren't true.

Such lines as "If you smoke pot, your banana will rot." The low sperm count is uncertain, and those that do have it go back to noormal if they quit. The physical changes that they boast with like growing breasts have the odds of about 1 in 2 million.

Oh, yeah...and the whole "Gateway Drug theory" is bullshit. Since only 10 percent of marijuana users go on to Cocaine. I'm not sure about the other heavy drugs.

Grade school, middle school, high school. All of it. They never gave us the full truth.
They never told us It's impossible to die from Marijuana, that it's the safest drug even versus legal drugs, and its not physically addictive. And the fact that Ectasy was a legal prescription drug up until 1985.

Tobbaco is more dangerous and harmful than Meth, in fact its just short of heroin as in amount of damage to the body.

So do you feel you were lied to? Or never given the full truth?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meth_mouth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rational_scale_to_assess_the_harm_of_drugs_(mean_physical_harm_and_mean_dependence).svg

 

[Radeonx]

They aren't there to inform us. They are there to keep us off drugs. They did a fairly decent job, in my opinion.

 

[Lord George]

We had some weird people dressed up in baggy clothing who used words like "hip" and "cool" back when I was in primary school, if anything it made me want to start taking drugs.

 

[Altorin]

Tobbaco is more dangerous and harmful than Meth, in fact its just short of heroin as in amount of damage to the body.

I don't believe that for a second, I'm sorry. I've dealt with many people who are addicted to heroin, meth, and tobacco, and let me tell you, heroin and meth are loads worse. Maybe not as bad as D.A.R.E tells you, but definitely worse for the person using them then tobacco is.

They aren't there to inform us. They are there to keep us off drugs. They did a fairly decent job, in my opinion.

no they didn't.

 

[The_ModeRazor]

Heh, we never have those round here. And we have lot less drug addicts.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

No, not particularly. Then again I don't remember being told that banana rot thing.

Grade school, middle school, high school. All of it. They never gave us the full truth.
They never told us It's impossible to die from Marijuana, that it's the safest drug even versus legal drugs, and its not physically addictive. And the fact that Ectasy was a legal prescription drug up until 1985.

Of course they're not going to tell you that! They're trying to DIScourage you from using the stuff, not ENcourage.

 

[Cowabungaa]

They were pretty honest about drugs against us. Can't remember being lied about them. Then again, I live in Holland.

 

[Sampler]

It's called voodoo pharmacology and only really deserves to score an own goal because if you start to think they lied about little things when you see a friend take weed and be ok (in the short term) you start to question the rest of it which can't be good.

If everyone was just grown up about it there wouldn't be such as mess.

 

[CrysisMcGee]

What I ment by Tobbaco is by pure harm it does to the body. It is a direct cause of Heart disease, lung cancer and the like. Heart disease is the greatest killer in the U.S.

 

[NeutralDrow]

<url=http://www.time.com/time/education/article/0,8599,99564,00.html>D.A.R.E. was a spectacular failure.

 

[Gooble]

We actually had a talk from an ex-drug dealer who'd been in prison and was now spending the rest of his life (which was only anticipated to be another 10-15 years) talking to school children about his experiences with drugs (including all the crap the dealers put in to bulk up an order), dealing drugs and prison life. Was really good actually, all our teachers went out, and we could ask him whatever we liked.

He'd started taking drugs when he was about 11, throughout his teens/early 20's started taking heavier stuff, started dealing, managed to get pretty near the top of one particular dealing chain, earning around £20,000-£30,000 a week or month (cant remember exactly), when he didn't get his money he'd thrown acid in people's faces, broken kneecaps etc., eventually got busted, spent several years in jail (which, despite the general opinions of jails being cushy nowadays, made it seem pretty horrible).

 

[Pimppeter2]

This worked better...

 

[Skeleon]

Meh, they only talked about nicotine and alcohol here.
And they didn't lie about those.

So, did they lie about drugs? No.
Did they teach us well about drugs? No.

 

[ReincarnatedFTP]

D.A.R.E. is a fraud and a massive failure.

1)They lie so much you can't tell when they are lying so some stupid moron thinks "Maybe heroin/meth isn't THAT bad".

2)The ONLY time you see anyone wear one of their t-shirts or wristbands is out of irony.It's a sure sign of a recreational drug user if there ever was one.Unless their plan was to make it easier to spot the drug users, they failed massively.

 

[grimsprice]

Tobbaco is more dangerous and harmful than Meth, in fact its just short of heroin as in amount of damage to the body.

I don't believe that for a second, I'm sorry.

I'm going to second that, i've seen people on meth; Its not pretty. I've seen people on tobacco and pot, and cocain, and heroin. Of the five i'd say meth is the most physically damaging. Its horrifying what some of these meth users look like. Those sick poster adds they use aren't that far from the truth.

 

[Wayward Sean]

Tobbaco is more dangerous and harmful than Meth, in fact its just short of heroin as in amount of damage to the body.

I don't believe that for a second, I'm sorry.

I'm going to second that, i've seen people on meth; Its not pretty. I've seen people on tobacco and pot, and cocain, and heroin. Of the five i'd say meth is the most physically damaging. Its horrifying what some of these meth users look like. Those sick poster adds they use aren't that far from the truth.

I agree. From what I've gathered, meth is the worst. Then heroin (any rockstar will tell you how bad that is). Then cocaine, followed by tobacco, and last would be pot.

We've been lied to plenty about these things. Some over-exaggerated, some under-exaggerated, but some truths were withheld.

 

[grimsprice]

Tobbaco is more dangerous and harmful than Meth, in fact its just short of heroin as in amount of damage to the body.

I don't believe that for a second, I'm sorry.

I'm going to second that, i've seen people on meth; Its not pretty. I've seen people on tobacco and pot, and cocain, and heroin. Of the five i'd say meth is the most physically damaging. Its horrifying what some of these meth users look like. Those sick poster adds they use aren't that far from the truth.

I agree. From what I've gathered, meth is the worst. Then heroin (any rockstar will tell you how bad that is). Then cocaine, followed by tobacco, and last would be pot.

We've been lied to plenty about these things. Some over-exaggerated, some under-exaggerated, but some truths were withheld.

Here's my pharmacutical rule of thumb. The more you have to process it, the worse it is for you. Pot is as natural as i comes, its just a leaf. Tobacco is processed a little, cocain is next on the list, then heroin, and for meth you practically have to own a full high school chemistry lab. Plants usually don't kill people, but strange chemicals have a way of fucking you up royally.

 

[matsugawa]

The whole 'rotting banana' quip and idioms along those lines, in the context of DARE or any other sort of motivational speech, is built around the philosophical principle of 'shoot for the stars, land on the moon." They tell us that 'Drugs are evil' 'They fund terrorism' or 'They'll make you a crackhouse-lounging degenerate' because that CAN be the worst case scenario, even if it may not actually be so. So, yeah, it may seem like we were 'lied to' once we see the not-so-bad reality (or majority case, as it were), but is it fair to call an exaggeration a lie just because it doesn't apply absolutely?

The 'reality' (to make a potentially gross generalization) is more like what was said on South Park, about how the worst part about marijuana (and other drugs by extension) is that they'll make you okay with being bored. Put simply, the worst thing that may well happen to you if you start using narcotics is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. By nothing, we mean that you'll just be lying on your bed (or wherever) in a complete and utter haze for hours on end, INSTEAD OF doing more meaningful things, like meeting new people, reading a few good books, playing sports, and/or just generally getting up and ACTUALLY DOING THINGS.

Back to the 'lies' and 'justification': I'm not a religious person, but I don't have to be to see that the Bible makes a lot of really good points REGARDLESS of whether or not it's historically true or not. DARE is the same way, it doesn't matter if what they're telling us about drugs is 'true' because what they're really telling us is that a life where you immerse yourself in an intoxicating substance is one of significantly lower quality than one where you're not. It's good advice, riddled with dubious scare tactics, but good advice all the same.

A lie? No.
An exaggeration? Maybe.
Good advice? Yeah, I'd say so.

 

[Lavi]

Generally YES. I don't do drugs, but I laughed up classes on them because I knew pot wasn't gonna make you drop over dead all of a sudden. No, that's what cigarettes do. Who the fuck cares about drugs anyways? It's all the extra chemicals added that kill you. They invented a way to smoke pure tabacco (diluted of course, but without extra chemicals): E-Smoke.

I'd like to do pot one day, but I definitely don't hang around the right sort of people to ever get a random opportunity.

EDIT: If they teached kids that some drugs aren't gonna fuck em up while others are, you'd probably have less kids doing the worse drugs. I also figure that addiction to any drug is 50% psychological.