In the fourth grade Officer Weiseman came to our class room to talk about drugs, then played four square with us at recess. He seemed nice. He seemed honest.
I would later learn something that made me realize I was likely to try drugs and also not trust police.
I found out that sugar was a drug. The only thing I loved more than sugar was my sling-shot. Were any of these drugs any fun? Better than sugar? I wanted to find out. It seemed like many people were taking drugs. I was eating as much sugar as I could get, despite my parents restriction from certain cereals and zero ice cream bars for breakfast policy, which was easily circumvented.
The first question I had was this:
"Officer, why are there so many names for marijuana?"
I never heard of something that had so many different names. I was suspicious of the whole program as soon as he told me he didn't know why it had so many names.
The reason marijuana has so many different names is because, right or wrong, so many people use it. And we only learned some of names for it in English.
I never played four square with him. I didn't trust him and I learned as a teen that the program misrepresented much of the boring facts related to drugs. My main point of contention as a teen with the D.A.R.E program was marijuana was not as dangerous as the program led us to believe. It was grouped into the same category as other drugs which the program did accurately inform us about, such as cocaine and opiates.
The most common problems that drugs cause were never addressed:
When people start drinking and doing drugs, they stop maturing in the same way that other people do who do not use or abuse drugs.
Take the case of Maria Rose Calhoun, a 30 year old woman who lives in Renton, WA. As a fourteen year old Maria was attending parties as often as possible, drinking, and taking extacy pills. Maria is an advanced dancer, with an advanced knowledge of dance music, and advanced knowledge of recreational drugs.
Her spelling and grammar is dreadful. She has memory troubles. While her classmates were reading and writing and going to ice cream socials, she was giving attention to older boys and also young men. Some nights she had a wonderful time. Other nights she fought off rape attempts, spent the night screaming, crying, or vomiting. I am sure more than one night included all those activities.
Eventually she was arrested, then arrested again, and so forth until the pending court dates caused her to drink and take pills just to relax, instead of dance for hours. The party was over. It was just her stressing out and unable to sleep.
The court dates and drugs had an effect on her young little brain. As a young sexy criminal in her early 30's she is very impatient and is always screaming, often 100% miserable. She is quick to seek a relationship and the physical aspects that often accompany two people who are attracted to each other, then obsess over her romantic situation, lack of sex, and lack of drugs.
She is obsessed with feeling good and has a very hard time doing things that do not provide instant gratification.
The dangers of drugs in the 80's were presented to us as a physical danger, including marijuana. The long term effects of illegal drugs on memory, the likelihood of personality changes, and the possibility of changing from a happy child to a really angry criminal was never discussed.
I think it should have been.
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