DARE COUNTERPRODUCTIVE

Dear Editor,

Lori McPhee [Painter accepts a DARE to help fundraiser, Feb. 29,
Langley Advance] should be lending her efforts to more effective and
truth-driven education programs like Educators For Sensible Drug
Policy or Canadian Students For Sensible Drug Policy.

Those programs teach the facts about drugs and drug laws, without all
the quasi-moralistic preaching, bias, and spin of programs like DARE.
Federal Medical Marijuana License Holders like myself find the fact
that taxpayers' dollars are used to send in the RCMP - instead of
nurses or teachers - to teach kids about drugs sickening and obscene.
DARE uses junk science, fear-mongering, hyperbole, blackmail, and
bribery in its effort to indoctrinate kids against certain drugs. They
teach fealty and obedience, rather than free will and wise choices.

It wouldn't be so bad if DARE actually worked, but in it's 20-odd-year
run, pot use among teens has quadrupled.

DARE has shown its value: it is wildly counterproductive, and is often
worse than no program at all.

There is a misconception in our society that suggests that only
abstinence is to be encouraged and admired.

Telling kids to "never" use certain drugs is like telling them to
never see a certain genre of movie, never go to an amusement park or
exotic country, or never do anything at all that may be both risky and
fun. It teaches them to be afraid of new things, instead of curious,
and as history has shown, fortune favours the adventurous.

Sensible, moderate, well-informed drug use is no more harmful,
dangerous, or immoral than any one of dozens of other activities
humans participate in every day.

And if you think "drugs" have nothing good to offer society, then
throw away every CD you own.

Russell Barth,

Federal Medical Marijuana License Holder