Why Does D.A.R.E Still Think We Care?
This article talks about drug abuse/addiction, police brutality, and sex trafficking. Reader discretion is advised.
I remember when D.A.R.E came to my school in 7th grade. When I walked into my Social Studies class that bright morning in 2011, I thought I’d be receiving the usual inspiring lecture by my teacher. Instead, my actual education was interrupted by our dinosaur of a school guidance counselor, who had ushered in another class to join ours for his presentation. After a small introduction that made it clear he already thought we were all drug-addicts-in-the-making that only this intervention would save us from, he then popped in a D.A.R.E tape from the 90’s with a bunch of professional skateboarders I’d never heard of talking about how “uncool” drugs are.
I watched, a mixture of confused, insulted, and tired, listening to the boys sitting behind me snickering to each other about how dumb the whole thing was. I couldn’t blame them— if this hadn’t been a total waste of time, it had also actually introduced me to a variety of drugs I’d never even heard of before then. We were then quizzed after, to which the boys behind me gave sarcastic, joking answers that ended in a back-and-forth between them and the guidance counselor. I daydreamed about going to lunch. Our class period ended and I left dumber than before I walked in.
If you haven’t heard, D.A.R.E (or Drug Abuse Resistance Education, which I didn’t think still existed after the Bush years) recently put out a statement condemning Euphoria, HBO’s glitzy drama about the lives of high schoolers navigating sex, violence, loss, and of course, drugs. D.A.R.E’s statement categorizes Euphoria as “glorifying” teen drug use and other risky behaviors by “erroneously depicting” them at all. D.A.R.E also goes on to lament about the “potential negative consequences on school-age children who today face unparalleled risks and mental health challenges.” Zendaya, who plays the drug-addicted Rue Bennett that the show’s main plot focuses on, has already crafted her own incredibly eloquent, patient response to this. However, I would like to take this discourse a step further.
In the wise words of Bianca Del Rio, let me ask you a very fair question, D.A.R.E: what do you do successfully?
This is not unfair to ask, considering the many, many failures of the D.A.R.E program that have been documented since it’s inception during the Reagan-era. A cursory glance at the Wikipedia page of D.A.R.E would tell one as much—there are countless studies listed that show that not only does D.A.R.E have no effect on rates of youth drug use, but that in many cases, the program can actually increase use by exposing students to drugs they had never even been aware of before. Hm, sounds familiar! One has to wonder if D.A.R.E would also then describe their own program as “erroneous depictions” of drug use that could have “negative consequences.”
Even further, D.A.R.E was a failure before it even began. The “War on Drugs” was a war started not on lessening rates of drug addiction and mental illness, but a war against the demands for social progress from marginalized groups, particularly Black people, by the Nixon administration. The War on Drugs has been aptly described by the ACLU as the New Jim Crow because it seeks not to treat the symptoms of drug addiction but to criminalize black people — many of which found themselves in the throws of addiction due to socioeconomic issues stemming from actual Jim Crow era policies (this is not even to touch on the fact that the CIA actively sent drugs into these communities with the intent to criminalize them).
Reagan, whose administration put the program in place, is well documented for exploiting racist stereotypes such as the “Welfare Queen” in order to destroy the social safety net, as well as just being racist himself. The founder of the D.A.R.E program was not a social worker, psychologist, or drug-treatment specialist, but Los Angeles police Chief Daryl Gates, who believed that “casual drug users should be taken out and shot” (which is very interestingly opposed to D.A.R.E’s purported mission of being anti-violence). The LAPD themselves, especially under Gates, have a well-documented history of police brutality against black people, the most famous of which includes the senseless beating of Rodney King in 1991 that led to Gates’s resignation. Instead of well-funded addiction treatment facilities, community resources, reasonable and nuanced drug legislation, and an expanded social safety net, Nixon and Reagan carved out a world in which addicts are sent to prisons and slapped with criminal records that stigmatize them for the rest of their lives, even if they manage to get treatment and stay sober.
What does D.A.R.E do successfully? Clearly, not much, if anything at all. And so comes my titular question: why does D.A.R.E still think we care what they have to say?
The answer to that, is, we don’t. The articles reporting on D.A.R.E’s statement about Euphoria only do so mockingly; they seek to contrast black-and-white, ineffective, and ignorant 80’s anti-drug propaganda next to the nuanced conversations and experiences that are shaping Euphoria’s storylines. The most recent episode of Euphoria’s Season 2, “Stand Still Like A Hummingbird,” left me absolutely terrified and thinking about it for days afterwards. As one twitter user with 2.9k likes put it, “this episode got me looking at my ibuprofen different.”
If you have not seen it, Rue’s mother finds out she has relapsed and has been taking heroin, fentanyl, and a variety of other drugs that she got from a dealer who gave her a 10k suitcase of them to sell. When Rue’s mother confiscates the drugs and tries to take her daughter back to rehab as she begins withdrawing, Rue goes on a rampage. Rue destroys her mother’s home, verbally and physically abuses her mother, sister, girlfriend, and friends, and ends up being chased by the police after robbing the home of a wealthy couple. She ends up at her dealer’s home and confesses she does not have the money, to which the dealer explains that even if she doesn’t have money, that’s the “good part about being a woman” — she “always has something people want.” After being shot up with morphine, Rue wakes up to all doors around her padlocked and barely manages to escape being sex trafficked by jumping out a window. Zendaya’s acting is so real and unshakably human in this episode that it has, rightfully, led to calls for her to receive another Emmy for the performance.
Euphoria is not the first of its kind. Before Euphoria, there was Skins, and even before Skins, there was Degrassi. While Euphoria has been criticized by some as unrealistic to the teenager experience, I have to disagree. There are many elements of what I see on Euphoria that represent what I went through in high school. Euphoria, like any other fictional television show, is a heightened dramatization of what adolescence is like. For every person who says Euphoria is nothing like their high school experience, I often wonder if they are focusing so much on the sparkly makeup, sex scenes, and parties that they are missing the real emotions and difficulties faced by these teenagers that most, if not all of us, have dealt with at some point in our lives.
People care about what Euphoria has to say about drug use, and that in and of itself is a threat to D.A.R.E. D.A.R.E, shaped by outdated racist and classist ideology, has clearly been unwilling to adapt to the change in conversation and updated science and legality about drug use. Marijuana is legal in 18 states, while shrooms and LSD have been rapidly decriminalized in cities and states across America — including being legalized for therapeutic use in Oregon. Some drug scientists, such as Dr. Carl Hart, believe that all drugs should be legalized after research showed healthy adults can handle drugs in controlled settings without becoming addicted. Former drug traffickers have even stated that War on Drug laws are what make the drug trade so massively profitable. D.A.R.E seems to have no framework on which to discuss any of this, as its foundation lies in the fact that doing drugs is a moral failing, and that all drugs in any quantity are fatally harmful and lead to lifelong addiction.
I don’t want anyone to come away from this article believing I don’t support anti-drug education for teenagers, because I do. There are real risks to engaging with drugs and alcohol during adolescence that teenagers should not be learning from prestige HBO dramas. But the reality of the D.A.R.E approach that seems to permeate even non-D.A.R.E programs is that it eliminates any real-world conversation about how drugs function in our society that would actually benefit teenagers in making informed decisions. In an ideal world, D.A.R.E would realize the problems in its approach and shift focus entirely to honestly discussing drug science and attempting to rectify the systemic inequalities that lead to addiction. While Euphoria seeks to say something about the intersection of mental illness, socioeconomic circumstances, and addiction, D.A.R.E remains just as my middle school guidance counselor — a dinosaur popping in the 90’s VHS and arguing with the youth of today.
