DARE to be Stupid

There has been a lot of talk lately about marijuana.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced the Obama administration would allow states to enforce their own medical marijuana laws.

Some in California want to totally legalize it so they can tax it.

Others consider the prison costs that can be saved for taxpayers.

All this reminds me of a County Board meeting in November of 1998.

It was my first budget process as a County Board Supervisor. I eyed the line item of $15,000 which was the County share of the DARE. program. I had disliked the DARE curriculum since my son went through it a few years earlier. What crap. No wonder we have the drug problems we do.  I was recognized by the Chair and rose to speak.

I explained that I was not opposed to a drug education program. I was opposed to THIS drug education program. I explained how I believed the DARE program lied to kids about many drugs thus doing more harm than good in the long run. We needed a new program.

The Chairman of the Law Enforcement Committee rose to respond. The  former Police Chief, County Sheriff and long time County Board Supervisor shook his finger at me as he spoke, “Of course we lie to the kids. How else are we going to get through to them?”

My motion to drop DARE did not get a second.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 at 4:59 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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