D.A.R.E.

It has been many years since I, myself, had to go through the D.A.R.E. program at my elementary school, but I remember it quite clearly. It was the most exciting part of the year. All of the little fifth graders got so excited because we got to say words that we were never aloud to say before, so when our officer told us to scream those words at the top of our lungs it was exhilarating. And while I think that the program is a fantastic idea, and it probably scared a lot of kids away from drugs and alcohol, the program had virtually no effect on any of the students. Maybe that is because I saw our officer, who was teaching us all about the awful effects of smoking, smoking cigarettes outside of her squad car one day. That was ironic. But as a senior in high school, whenever we talk about D.A.R.E. now it is the punchline of a witty joke. I've even seen people wear there D.A.R.E shirts as a joke, or a D.A.R.E. shirt party were everybody gets together wearing the shirts and basically defaces them with what they are doing. So no, the idea of scaring fifth graders out of their wits did not work at all. I think that there are many better ways of going about the D.A.R.E. program, ways that don't involve scare tactics. Because, simply put, D.A.R.E. was a lie. I know that now, and so does everybody else.