D.A.R.E. : Drug Abuse Resistance Education (resistance is futile...ed) is the program conceived by Daryl Gates of Rodney King infamy. The same Daryl Gates whose leadership of the LAPD spawned the likes of Mark Furman of OJ infamy. The DARE program apparently has some infamy of its own. DARE provides a way for police to be in schools and "educate" children after a two week training course. These "educators" instruct children as to the correct use of handcuffs by handcuffing two of the children together, telling them what extreme damage guns and pepper spray are capable of (yes, these "educators" are armed with both in the class) and encouraging the kids to use the DARE QUESTION BOX. Didn't you always wonder why these kids pop up in the news as wards of the state after turning in their parents (usually for pot) for doing drugs? Kids are told these messages are anonymous but they aren't told their parents will be busted and the kiddies subsequently parent free. Older graduates of the 17 week program, (hey it takes awhile to get with the program.. gotta make sure it takes),teens, are used in undercover stings by the cops to try and trap merchants into selling them cigarettes. Now you know where those teens in merchant busts came from.. things are getting clearer by the moment!

DARE, not surprisingly, has a big budget, 750 million smackers (that we know of) each year. Private donations can be anonymous. Large corporations donate for a tax writeoff (corporate welfare) and frequently their executives serve on the board of DARE America and DARE California. According to the Columbia Online Encyclopedia: Michael Milken (who has served on the board) has a tasty bio: American Financial Executive at Drexel Burnham Lambert,Inc., he transformed corporate takeovers by the use of high-yield junk bonds, becoming enormously wealthy. In 1989, a Federal Grand Jury handed down a 98~count indictment against Milken for violations of federal securities and racketeering laws. He pled guilty to securities fraud and related charges in 1990 , and the government dropped the more serious charges of insider trading and racketeering.

Yes, it is clear that a lot of hands are in the taxpayers pockets. A huge DARE bureaucracy has grown and is now feeding off itself as long as monies keep pouring in. The public, in turn, feeds on its delusion of comfort that DARE is keeping children off drugs even though study after study has shown DARE to be of little or no efficacy. Much like AA and NA who don't and can't show any success rate. Then there is the profit factor (isn't there always?) in T~shirts, pens, bumper stickers, lapel pins, gym bags, etc, which are sold by four licensed distributors nationwide. These for-profit businesses pay royalties of 5-10% to DARE America. Yeah, theres a lot of money to made off the Drug War and savvy entrepreneurs are more than happy to take it. They think they're clever. More importantly, they think we're chumps. Victims, ripe for the pickin. For a more indepth analysis of DARE go to:

http://www.drcnet.org/DARE/

This truck, pictured on a web site maintained by a DARE officer, was seized by the government under a controversial program known as "asset forfeiture", in which drug defendants can lose their property even if they are never found guilty of any crime.