[MUSIC PLAYING] The '80s and '90s
were a hodgepodge of anti-drug nerds trying to
ruin our cool lives by telling us drugs weren't copacetic. (SINGING ON VIDEO)
Don't do drugs. Eggs on frying pans. (ON VIDEO) This is
your brain on drugs. Learning it from your dad. (ON VIDEO) I learned
it by watching you. And the granddaddy of them all-- (ON VIDEO) People will tell
you that drugs are cool and that everybody
is doing them. But you know what? You're wrong. D.A.R.E. Today
we're learning how the D.A.R.E.
Campaign was a bigger failure than you realized. But before we get started,
make sure you subscribe to the Weird History Channel. All right, kids, let's take a
non-hallucinogenic trip back to the 80s. [MUSIC PLAYING] Some of the earliest studies
of D.A.R.E.'s effectiveness exposed D.A.R.E. as being
a pretty useless program for keeping teenagers
off of drugs and alcohol. It seemed D.A.R.E.'s zero-chill
educational approach to keeping these curious hormonal
rebellious little hooligans off of drugs was not working. And in fact, was having the
opposite intended effect. Turns out, teenagers
are less of a learn by riveting PowerPoint
presentation and more of a do it and see if we
die kind of learners. They might have been taught
to say, "Just Say No," but they were way more
likely to say, ah, yes, to a bag full of those items
they learned about in school if they completed the D.A.R.E.
Program then those who didn't. If only D.A.R.E. Had listened
to its dad, who told them this would happen. (ON VIDEO) Who taught
you how to do this stuff? S.M.A.R.T., the program that
inspired and birthed D.A.R.E., also failed in its
earlier days, suffering from the same arrogant idea
that students would blindly listen to an authority, having
never seen a John Hughes film or seemingly met a teenager. But when S.M.A.R.T. reached
out to D.A.R.E. to inform them of the changes made to better
the program by making it work, D.A.R.E. resisted. It is, after all, right
there in its name. The most damning
study was commissioned by a National
Institute of Justice and conducted by the Research
Triangle Institute, that said the program was
occupying space and hoarding funding from other programs
that actually had value and, you know, worked. The NIJ never
published the findings that D.A.R.E. was a dud, so the
charade continued in schools across the nation. Meanwhile, our
fragile youths were being corrupted by
the temptation created by the very thing
meant to keep them on the straight and narrow,
the temptation of knowledge. [MUSIC PLAYING] As mentioned, D.A.R.E. was so
bad at keeping teens drug free, it accidentally turned them into
little Jim Morrison's, thanks to a fun social
psychology phenomenon known as The Boomerang Effect. Basically, by telling somebody
they shouldn't do something because they might die, it makes
the person morbidly curious to test that theory. Cheating death, sounds fun. Couple that with
teenagers very loose grasp on how fragile
life is, and well, you're going to tempt dumb kid
to do some experimenting. D.A.R.E. might have been
saying, "Doing lines of cocaine can cause your heart
to stop beating," but all those rebellious teens
heard was, that'll show dad. (ON VIDEO) Who taught
you how to do this stuff? They did have a lion
mascot named Daren, and pretty sure
S.M.A.R.T. didn't. So, you know, they
knew what kids liked. [MUSIC PLAYING] Despite mountains of
overwhelming evidence, the general public stood
by the D.A.R.E. Program throughout the '90s. Parents loved D.A.R.E.. It was nice. It had good intentions. There were police involved. It got to talk to
your kids about drugs so you didn't have to. There was a little mascot. What's not to love? Who cares if it was a giant
waste of time and money? D.A.R.E. settled into
their impeccable reputation by having the audacity to
say, "Knocking D.A.R.E. is like kicking your mother or
saying that apple pie doesn't taste good." Ignoring that some
apple pie is nasty and it might not
taste good, and look, some mothers might
need to be kicked. What if your mom
wasn't moving and you needed to see if she was alive? A little kick
might be all that's standing between her and death. And now, since everything is
bad and facts are alternative, now there's a push to bring
D.A.R.E. back to schools. Oh, did you think
this story was not going to involve Jeff Sessions? Because this story definitely
involves Jeff Sessions. Former Attorney General and
ex-Keebler elf, Jeff Sessions, said in 2017 that, despite
research to the contrary, he still believed
D.A.R.E. worked. Why? Well, because he just did. That's enough to spend money
on things that, objectively, don't work, right? I mean, case in point, the wall. At least D.A.R.E.
was cheap, right? Oh, no. D.A.R.E. cost a ton of money. Daren the Lion does not
work for free, guys. There was a lot of demand
for meddling lion mascots who didn't do drugs and
demanded the same life standards for everyone in the '90s. What started local
to Los Angeles, soon spread to an estimated
75% of the country. And was so vastly supported
that local state and federal governments gave the program
somewhere between $200 million to $2 billion, just
in the year 2003. [CHA-CHING] Well after several studies
proved it ineffective. Think about that. $2 billion to fund a
program that fundamentally did not work. Only after several
years worth of research that could no longer be ignored
and a detailed financial audit did the government
stop hemorrhaging money into the program. [MUSIC PLAYING] The idea behind the original
D.A.R.E. curriculum was simple. Tell kids about the devastating
consequences of cigarettes, alcohol, and illegal
drugs and they'll be less likely to use them. Foolproof, right? In theory, it should work. In practice, it did not. But lazy teachers who didn't
want to come up with a better idea, and police
officers who just needed to show they
were trying, were convinced that education
was their best tool when it came to prevention,
without realizing that such a direct approach
may not work on young children. Current D.A.R.E.
President Frank Peguerios once said, "Everyone believed
that if you just told students how harmful these substances
and behaviors were they'd stay away from them." Unfortunately,
young kids weren't as receptive to the education
as a prevention approach. School is boring. Learning is hard. Everybody just wants
to go home, watch TV and eat snacks, and not
hear about lung cancer when you're 12 years old. Despite this, the
program continued. It was, after all, the '80s. And let me tell you, people
hated drugs in the '80s. (ON VIDEO) You know getting
into drugs and being high is a real stupid thing to do. [MUSIC PLAYING] Every decade needs
a scary boogie man to rally behind and blame all
of our deep-rooted societal problems on. And in the '80s,
and into the '90s, the blanket term, drugs,
was the 9/11 of the times. And who was steering this
illegal caravan of bad hombres? A sweet little old lady by
the name of Nancy Reagan. In the early 1980s,
America's grandma had had it with
all of these drugs and demanded the youths
of America, "Just Say No." First Lady Nancy went
from school to school, telling children to
"Just Say No" to all of these drugs with a t-shirt. Once she'd absorbed
enough child's fear to energize herself, Nancy would
swing into the occasional rehab center to gather
horrible tales of people. She'd then share
these horror stories with all of America,
which in turn made the whole country say, "Hell
no!" to people who said, "Hell yes!" to drugs. (ON VIDEO) Today, there's a
drug and alcohol abuse epidemic in this country and no
one is safe from it. And the plan worked, a
boogie man was created. The Reagan Administration's
pulverizing advocacy for anti-drug causes
resulted in 64% of Americans in 1985 believing drugs were the
number one issue in the nation. Sorry, AIDS. (ON VIDEO) So, won't you join
us in this great new national crusade. Nancy's PR campaign worked, and
America was all in on D.A.R.E.. Yes, teach our kids the perils
of drug addiction, Daren. Give the people what they want. But like the cordless phones,
beepers, and "The Rachel", D.A.R.E. couldn't make it past
the '90s, as it became harder to ignore the evidence that
the program was deeply flawed and an abject failure. Move over Drug Abuse
Resistance Education, and make way for the snazzy new
program with a very unfortunate name, "keepin' it REAL." The program, "keepin' it REAL"
replaced D.A.R.E. in 2009 in middle schools, and
eventually expanded to elementary schools in 2013. Choosing to forgo the 45-minute
dreary lecture that children normally enjoy,
"keepin' it REAL" opts for a more
interactive model that teachers and
D.A.R.E. officers noted children didn't hate. Student engagement
was markedly higher. Without a regular
anti-drug program, it's a cool anti-drug program. [MUSIC PLAYING] You could tell a surly
teen to "Just Say No" until you're blue in the
face and pat yourself on the back for all the good
work that you did that day. But in the real life scenario
that this same teen is offered a fistful of bud,
the odds are pretty high they panic and say,
OK, sure, and just take some of the devil's cabbage. "keepin it REAL" arms teens
with more tools in their belt by approaching potential
drug solicitations in more realistic terms. The core of the program is in
the acronym, Refuse, Explain, Avoid, and Leave. REAL proposes, at
first offering, an explanation for why they
don't want to do something. Or if possible, attempt
to avoid the issue. I see Billy is offering
meth to my classmates. I think I'll take a
different route home and maybe avoid
Billy for the day. And finally, if that doesn't
work, they can leave. Oh, right, I don't
have to do meth. I have a body autonomy and I
can just leave and go somewhere where there is no meth. The great thing
about this program is it's applicable to
so many other scenarios in these young kids' lives. The goal of "keepin' it
REAL" is to help kids get out of any situation that makes
them uncomfortable, almost as if teenage drug use is a
symptom of being a complicated, growing, changing
person trying to fit into a society of insecure,
relentlessly cool teenagers, and not the cause of
all their problems. And you know the best thing
about "keepin' it REAL?" It actually works. [MUSIC PLAYING] The results so far have been
overwhelmingly positive, according to a report from
the Scientific American that concluded, students who
completed "keepin' it REAL" indicated they use
drugs and alcohol less than those in the
control group that did not. The report claims
the skills and ideas taught by "keepin'
it REAL" are more likely to stick with students
and reduce substance abuse at a rate that was 72% higher
than the control group. The old boring snooze
fest of D.A.R.E. pasts have been replaced with
student interaction and group work, teaching them various
ways to "Just Say No" to drugs. According to Sergeant
Christine Rapp of Indiana, a D.A.R.E. Officer for 16 years,
"The interaction and group work are awesome because we
learn by doing much more than by hearing." "When they learn the ways
to say no to friends, they absolutely love getting
up in front of the class and acting those out." The world doesn't need anymore
drug addicts or alcoholics. (SINGING ON VIDEO)
Don't do drugs. But what they definitely do
need are more improv troops. Did D.A.R.E. keep you away from
drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes? Let us know in the
comments below. And while you're at it, check
out some of these other videos from our Weird History.
Our DARE officer told us doing cocaine was like having an hours long orgasm for your brain.
First off, we were 10 and hadn't hit puberty much less had an orgasm yet
Secondly, once I finally did discover sex, how unappealing did that make cocaine sound?
my officer told 3rd graders that we would be able to hear and smell colors.
good job dude.
My DARE cop said if we did acid and listening to a song. Years later if we hear that song, we'd go right back into tripping. Said a man did some in the 70s and years later killed his family because he started to trip while driving and the song came on.
We ate that shit up
Telling kids that marijuana was just as dangerous as heroine turned it into the gateway drug they claimed it was from the start. If you try weed and they lied about that, then of course you’d think they lied about the rest.
As a kid I always thought it was odd that there slogan was Dare To Keep Kids off drugs. Like they were literally daring us to NOT take drugs. The whole program was a big scare tactic full of lies.
Before I had no idea what drugs looked like, after I knew all the kinds and what they did to you.
Also my mom helped me roll a fake joint for a diorama that got my teacher to pull me aside for a chat when my mom came to pick me up. That was fun.
Jokes on them, I made props for a play recently where my fake weed and joints looked so good someone stole them off the props table!
All D.A.R.E. taught me was that people will lie about anything to push an agenda.
I’m wearing a dare shirt right now. Weird
Dare failed because they were dishonest. And kids can see through that crap.