D.A.R.E: Real Science or Fake News?

Was the D.A.R.E. Program “Fake News?”

If you had a cop come talk to kids in school about “pot” in the 1980’s or 90’s you might have heard that cannabis consumption can induce psychosis and lead young mothers to accidentally bake newborns in the oven.

The drug warriors and their allies in the corporate media have toned down the clown-shoes scare tactics somewhat. It’s not as easy to convince adults that the US propaganda film “Refer Madness” is extremely realistic as it once was. These days the self-described ‘drug-warriors’ take a more sophisticated approach than they used to.

As a result, you’ll see as lot of stuff in USA Today about some study being hyped by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (this is like D.A.R.E. for conservative adults) that allegedly shows how cannabis has a deleterious impact on adolescent brain development.

But when you do a little digging almost all of these ‘independent studies’ are paid for by Big Pharma and lack the kind of scientific peer-review required to show legitimacy.

It’s a clever approach. After all, it’s kind of hard to get modern people to buy into the refer madness of Nancy Reagan and DARE cops that tell kids (with a straight face) that alcohol is not a ‘gateway’ drug like cannabis.

One the main challenges the drug war industrialists are facing is on the messaging front. So it’s probably smarter to point to non-peer-reviewed (and also not double-blind) studies than trying to convince a non-crazy person that smoking weed makes you cook your baby.

Because if you believe that it’s highly likely you have a lot of questions about Hunter Biden’s emails which were found by a blind computer repair man in Delaware and sent to everyone’s least favorite bat-shit crazy uncle – the right-wing entertainment personality and drag-queen Rudy Giuliani.

Oh yeah – by the way –  this group did some real studies on cannabis use and brain development. The results are bad news if you work at DEA or FOX. Can you guess what the science says before you click the link?

The drug warriors understand that one should never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Thankfully there are fewer and fewer people that want to pay the government to produce fake news about a plant.