I'm really asking for it this time

*** I had written this months ago and refrained from publishing it, figuring I'd calm down and get on with my life. I just came across it as I searched for something to post to end this blog drought. So . . . why not? Here's a little rant from May 13th. Enjoy. ***

Jordan is now a proud D.A.R.E. graduate. (pause for applause and the appropriate awww, how darling remarks). Yes, yes, he's growing up. He is now equipped to say no to those devastating flesh eating drugs.

I told you I was asking for it.

We attended his graduation at the high school on Tuesday evening and frankly, were a bit disturbed by the insistence on the evils of drugs/alcohol. I'll be the first to share with you the dangers of drugs and alcohol. They are the stories I traffick in daily. The over doses, the arrests, the addictions, the jail time, the 10 years without a driver's license, the heart ache, the self loathing, the despair. We are all too familiar with the dangers and consequences of drugs and alcohol.

Sadly, though, we are also all too familiar with the fact that peer pressure isn't the only reason that people ever drink a beer or light a joint. They do it because it can be and sometimes is a heck of a lot of fun. They do it because they can't stand the noise inside their own heads. They do it for a hundred different reasons each time - only a fraction of a percentage of which they can be aware of at any given time.

So why don't we talk to kids about reality?
Why don't we prepare them for the fact that the the meth head they saw in their slide show didn't scratch the skin off their bones and lose all their teeth the first time they smoked a joint or cooked up some meth?

Because what they created in that classroom, it seems, is a horror show version of what drug/alcohol use looks like. So what happens when Johnny gets high and doesn't actually die or go to prison? Was it all a lie? How easy is it to throw out the sound medical/scientific/legal consequences along with the realization that people don't lose their teeth and hair and future right away?

I'm concerned by this apparent disregard for reality. Are there really kids in the hallways and at the bus stops pushing drugs? Not where I went to school. Sure the drug were all too available - so was the alcohol, but no one said "You'll be cool if you smoke this". I may have told myself that, but what could it hurt? They all looked like they were having fun. No one was suffering the kinds of consequences that our DARE officer said were sure to come if you didn't just say no.

So I did it. Not because of external peer pressure, but because I decided that I wanted to. Simple as that. Whatever cost/benefit analysis I conducted came back saying that having as much fun as everyone else far outweighed the outlandish and almost sensationalized ideas of Juvie and overdoses and wasted lives.

But what we fail to equip our kids with is the practical understanding that those serious and devastating consequences don't always happen, don't always happen right away, and don't always look the way they did in the slide show. Can't we help them make informed, rational decisions based on reality? Can't we have an impact on that cost/benefit analysis?

Because here is what I am hearing from the DARE graduates here:
"I won't ever touch a cigarette or drugs or alcohol because my whole life will be ruined. I will never finish school, have a good job or a family if I do drugs."

"If you do drugs like meth you will look like 30 years older than you are and you'll scratch all your skin off - like down to the bones."

"People will try to make me do drugs but I can say no because I want to be an NFL quarterback when I grow up and I can't be a good athlete if I do drugs."


I thought I was over it. I thought I had smiled and encouraged and asked smart questions, created safe space for real conversations. And I thought that the DARE maneuver was just a little rite of passage that we could discuss and then forget.

And there went my non-profit mind. . . . I'd like to see their outcomes. How do they measure the success of this program? What are the deliverables? Completion of coursework? Is there a control group? Any 5th graders around who did not receive this training? Did they say no to drugs at the same rate that those DARE graduates did?

And then I opened the packet that Jordan got after shaking 10 self-important people's hands.

And I am not over it. (clearly)

And I am asking for all kinds of ridicule and disdain with this post. (obviously).

When I picked the envelope up off the table, I thought, well maybe there's something of substance here. Maybe there is something that encourages parents to be real with their kids when it comes to this stuff. Maybe there was something that says "you're a smart kid. Think about your decisions. Consider the cost. Decide what you want. Use your brain. And at the end of the day, I love you and I'm here to talk." Because, you know, we trust that we've equipped our kids to be individuals, to think for themselves, to talk openly about their experiences and concerns. Oh wait.

But there wasn't anything like that in there.

Instead there was half a forest (yes, entire forests now only produce 54 sheets of paper) congratulating the DARE graduate on his/her achievement. Letters from everyone you can imagine. Letter #1 - Joe Biden. all the way down to a councilman I've never heard of. 27 letters of congratulation. Most of them commend the graduate on their commitment to completing the coursework. They recognized the time commitment that the graduate made and how seriously they must have taken the program to have completed it.

I'm sorry. . .did I miss something?
Was this optional?
Was this offered outside of school hours?
Was more than half of Jordan's workbook even filled out?

No. It was not.

Do these politicians know anything about my kid or about the program they so readily endorse?

DARE has never been for the kids. It is apparently for the politicians. It is one way that parents and teachers and politicians can feel like they are doing something without ever really doing anything.

Dammit man.

Oh yeah, one last gem. Jordan informed me later that night that they really focused just on gateway drugs. "You know, like cocaine."

Clearly, he has received quite the education.