Pubdate: Thu, 01 Mar 2001
Source: New Times (CA)
Copyright: 2001 New Times
Contact:  505 Higuera St., San Luis Obispo, CA 93401
Fax: (805) 546-8641
Website: http://www.newtimesslo.com/
Author: Daniel Blackburn

D.A.R.E. ME TO HAVE A CHEROOT

My youngest son announced the other day that he was about ready to start 
playing "M"-rated video gems. That's "M" for mature.

He's only 11, so I asked him how this would be possible.

"Because now I know how to resist violence and drugs," he chirped. He 
attributed this sudden strength of character to his successful completion 
of a required D.A.R.E. class at his school.

I think the boy meant that he was more able, with this fabulous program's 
vital information, to resist impulses of violence against others. I'm glad 
about this, of course, just as I am pleased with his newfound shield 
against the evils of illicit drugs.

According to my more cynical associates, this buffer will prevail for at 
least 12 more months - until the kid is firmly locked into middle school 
with drugs, sex, rock'n'roll, and smart-mouthed punks in every corridor.

The enthusiasm of the young for resisting wrong is perpetually refreshing. 
I remember confessing to my mortal sins during a forced religious youth and 
actually believing that I would never commit that particular sin ever 
again, but my resolve always dissolved, victimized by common human 
weakness. But this isn't about me, is it?

I'm writing this an hour or so before the young one's D.A.R.E. graduation 
ceremonies. I was made to promise that I would stand and ask the question 
that will be on everyone's lips: Why continue with an expensive program 
that has been proven, over and over again, to be ineffective?

An ABC television news report on D.A.R.E.'s failure, aired just the day 
before my son's D.A.R.E. event, even depicted the organization's well-paid 
director admitting that the well-entrenched "educational" program doesn't work.

Timing of the televised news segment was fate, certainly not intended to 
coincide with planned D.A.R.E. graduation fetes nationwide.

The ABC report pointed out that others have D.A.R.E.d to criticize D.A.R.E. 
in the past, and in return these hapless critics have been vilified, 
shouted down and accused of being soft on drug abuse. Any critic worth his 
or her salt wouldn't be put off by this kind of abuse if it weren't for the 
fact that it's coming from guys in blue wearing badges and side arms.

This inability of D.A.R.E. to accomplish its goals is not really 
surprising. It is, after all, just another government-funded program, 
brimming with false hope and built-in structural inadequacies, and facing 
an inevitable doom. Its advocates don't teach, they preach, and as a result 
they fail the long-term reach.

The basic problem with these programs is that they commence way too soon. 
This premature evocation is based on the false premise that children can be 
educated to avoid the festering cesspool of sinful delights and harmful 
situations awaiting them. Don't-do-drugs-or-be-violent classes should be 
administered in middle and high school, so the teaching officer can 
accurately assess the percentage of stoned-to-the-bone students - and make 
appropriate arrests.

Arrests not only maximize the utility of a police officer's classroom time, 
but they're superlative teaching illustrations that could replace the 
educational video.

This is not unlike putting another police officer on the streets.

As if to hone the canons of his new D.A.R.E.-injected, zero-tolerance 
demeanor, my youngest asked me the other day, "Daddy, why do you do drugs?"

Nonplussed (or is that "plussed"?), I asked, "What in the bejeebers are you 
talking about?"

He pointed to the can of Bud I clutched. And nailed my coffin shut with all 
the scorn a kid can muster: "You smoke a cigar sometimes."

 From the lips of a child, the truth was on the table.

I thought about the boy's comments that night as I fired up a cheroot, 
wondering how long it will be before his pleasant, simple nature is 
wrestled into submission by dark teenage impulses and formidable peer group 
pressures.

This tumult will come to pass soon enough, and it will not be the legacy of 
D.A.R.E. that the kid eventually reenters the human race as a responsible 
adult. It will be through the parental efforts of his beer-swilling, 
cigar-chomping father, and a mother who somehow neutralized surrounding evil.

An no small amount of luck.

[New Times' Editor's note:

New Times columnist Daniel Blackburn promises this is the last time he'll 
mention his family.]
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