93: D.A.R.E.; Or, Just Say Narc

Description

Roll out the VCR and pull up a folding chair, because it’s time for a good ol’ PSA. That’s right, we’re going old-school this week at This Was a Thing, and rewinding to a more innocent time when the classrooms were full of happiness, juice boxes, and policemen leading improvisation exercises where you pretended to sell drugs to your friends.

Rob teaches Ray about Drug Abuse Resistance Education, a.k.a. D.A.R.E., and how it grew from a small pilot program in L.A. schools to a multi-million dollar, tax-funded behemoth taught to kids across the country; why Rob takes issue with Nancy Reagan’s famous three-line slogan; Ray’s memories from his own D.A.R.E. experience; the controversy that erupted after when studies demonstrated that D.A.R.E.’s methods might actually be counterproductive; Rob’s favorite celebrity anti-drug PSAs; the program’s iconic merch; and what D.A.R.E.’s fall from prominence tells us about the United States’s changing opinion about drug education.

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