PROGRAM LEADING TO LOSS OF INDIVIDUAL LIBERTIES

To The Editor,

RE: Column: Police Presence At Schools:

As a federally licensed medical marijuana user who is also married to
one, I consider D.A.R.E. nothing more than a government-sponsored hate
crime.

Not only has D.A.R.E. failed to reduce drug use (pot use has
quadrupled in the 20-plus years since the program was started,) it
also lies to kids about drugs, drug users, and drug laws. It uses
misinformation, and actively encourages stigmas and alienation of drug
users with rhymes and sloganeering like "Users are Losers."

The fact that police are sent into schools to do the job of teachers
or health care workers is doubly sickening.

But police officers in schools has nothing to do with "safety," it has
to do with conditioning the next generation's acceptance of an
environment where they are constantly monitored by authority. cameras,
then cops, then searches, then what? When these kids become adults,
they will think nothing of submitting to random, unwarranted searches
of their cars, homes, and persons, all because they have been
conditioned to obey without question.

By 2020, the very concept of "civil rights and liberties" will be
non-existent.

Totalitarianism comes incrementally sometimes, and it is rising
fast.

Russell Barth

federally licensed medical marijuana user

Patients Against Ignorance and Discrimination on Cannabis