What Alarms Me Most Is That Kids Learn To Narc At Such An Early Age

Damn the DARE program.

Apparently, a substitute teacher was doing coke amidst a class of seventh graders in Jacksonville, FL. Now, I know that one shouldn't be doing coke, particularly during the daytime. I mean, sunlight is not the coke whore's friend. And in a public place and in the presence of children--wrong. But who are these kids? Don't they know they're supposed to keep their mouth's shut/threaten to rat him out unless he throws a few rails their way. What are they teaching the kids in school these days?

And speaking of DARE, can I just say that it's arguably the biggest waste of time and money since The FAME television series; though it did provide us with a young, pre-Control Ms. Janet Jackson.

Over Thanksgiving break, I was back home in Poughkeepsie, [Upstate] New York. Yes, I was stoned off my face for the entire time I was there, but that's not exactly where I'm going with this rant. But there was a murder across the street while I was there. And I had nothing to do with it. Not like anyone could prove that I did...Anywho, around 6 am, the door bell rang and it was the cops. No, rather, it was a very special cop. It was my first DARE counselor, making his was around the gayborhood questioning everyone. Thankfully, he didn't recognize me. Or the weed in my pocket. That would have been, in a word, awkward.

But I got to thinking. Seeing my ex-DARE warden, I realized that the scare tactics they employed probably did more harm than good. For years, I was the picture of sobriety. I rarely if ever got drunk, I never smoked weed or did drugs. But then college came. I still managed to abstain, though not for the lack of trying. I wanted to try something/anything/everything because I had abstained for so long; out of fear of becoming addicted, going to jail, what have you. DARE told me if I tried weed, I'd end up a drug fiend. So eventually, curiosity gave way to experimentation. Now, here I am. I'm not a drug fiend, but I am a huge stoner. And why? Of course, I share the lion's end of the blame, but what of DARE? They taught my peers and I how to fear and to judge, instead of teaching us how to abstain and handle ourselves in the likely case that we did experiment.

And I blame Nancy Reagan. Mostly because she tricked Gary Coleman into narcing on his friends in a very special episode of "Diff'rent Strokes" when she obviously should have been paying more attention to Todd Bridges and Dana Plato. But also, because just saying no doesn't leave room for a maybe, which can often lead one down a dangerous path.