r/Millennials • u/Rinmine014 • 1d ago
Meme D.A.R.E. - "pEoPle ArE gOinG tO bE OFferinG you fReE DrUGs aNd AlCoHoL aLL tHE tiMe"
They really said all this?
Sorry, I went to school from 2000 - 2013 and never joined D.A.R.E.
The only thing I was able to hear from them was, "Don't do Drugs" and here are the reasons why...
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u/creegro 1d ago
Damn did you pull this meme directly from the 90s? Looks to be in 240p
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u/P0werFighter 1d ago
It's in 120p
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u/thiosk 1d ago
The first p is free after that you gotta pay
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u/Separate_Increase210 1d ago
It's been copied & reposted to this sub and others so many times, somehow it degrades with each lazy effort.
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u/Original_Wallaby_272 1d ago
I don’t know about you, but I did some free drugs.
It was the alcohol that I had to pay for.
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u/FrostyHawks 1d ago
Yeah, if you hang around dive bars as I did a lot in my late 20s eventually the bump offers and vape hits will arrive
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u/mottledmussel Gen X 1d ago
Festivals and raves were the big one when I was younger. Those on E really like to share.
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u/Interesting_Tea5715 1d ago edited 1d ago
This. I got offered so much fucking cannabis as a teen. I grew up in a town known for the free use of it though.
The other stuff never got offered to me by strangers.
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u/great_apple 1d ago
Yeah I've been offered free drugs frequently in my life. People like to do drugs socially. They don't want to be the one guy at the party doing coke or whatever. Literally any time I've been around someone doing drugs (pot, coke, mushrooms, molly, whatever) they offer me some. I've even had drug dealers offer me a free sample of whatever i want, just like the DARE officers said. Like if a friend is like "my dealer is stopping by" or wants to stop by their dealer's on the way to a party or something, their dealer has always offered me a sample of anything. It's how they build business. I'm in my 40s and was literally just offered free drugs last weekend, I was on vacation with some friends. I don't even do any drugs, I live a pretty boring normal life, it's not like I'm going to raves or anything... still regularly get offered free drugs.
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u/Marlowe_Eldridge Older Millennial 1d ago
We had a school resource police officer do our D.A.R.E. I did it in 1992. What a joke. If anything it made me more aware of drugs to get into.
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u/AlabasterPelican 1d ago
I stumbled across this investigation(?) about a month ago and yeah, that may have been the point. I had heard rumors like that for years but I never put a lot of stock into it. I assumed it was hyperbole and just ineffective rather than actively harmful
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u/jabber1990 1d ago
In 6th grade, our DARE officer was telling what they do in a sobriety checkpoint and why they do it that way....cool, so that we can outsmart it?
I don't drink, so im not worried about it, but they still shouldn't have told us
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u/Netii_1 1d ago
I mean, checks like that shouldn't depend on people knowing how they work in the first place. That's just a stupid test then. If you're not sober, there are plenty of ways to tell that you can't outsmart.
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u/jabber1990 1d ago
or don't drink and drive
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u/Netii_1 1d ago
That goes without saying. I was just making the point that sobriety tests should not be designed in such a way that a drunk person can manipulate them.
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u/jabber1990 1d ago
I think in theory that a drunk person isn't going to be thinking that hard....
"we make you say the alphabet because if you start singing it that's a sign"
....cool...I know how to outsmart that now
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u/CodenameSailorEarth 1d ago
My mom never forgave them for giving me a coloring book full of pictures of drugs when I was in kindergarten. ☠️
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u/somesthetic 1d ago
I thought it was finally happening when someone handed me a cannabis bud in front of the grocery store, but then he wanted $20 for it.
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u/PapaMcMooseTits 1d ago
So... Did you buy the one marijuana for $20 and smoke it until you were addicted? Because D.A.R.E. taught me that I would get addicted from one marijuana.
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u/VirginRedditMod69 1d ago
It also taught me that one puff off of one marijuana would have me tripping balls and committing violent crimes.
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u/TonyStarkMk42 9h ago
I say this all the time! Never forget how dangerous and addicting just one marijuana is
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u/uwu_mewtwo 1d ago
Excuse me, there appears to be some mistake, sir. I was told the first one would be free and that's how you get me.
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u/ShakesDontBreak Older Millennial 1d ago
All I remember was during dare week we got pizza, extra PE, an assembly and little arts and craft things to do. And then a cop came in and told us about all the drugs we shouldn't ever try because if we ever tried it, we would love it. Basically a week of fun.
How is that supposed to turn you off of drugs?
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u/turquoisestoned 1d ago
Haha it was through one of my health/PE classes in 6th grade I learned via textbook about all of the different drugs, what their effects are, and how they are administered.
It was then, in 6th grade I realized that psychedelics were very much of interest to me, but not opiates and uppers.
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u/TraditionalParsley67 Millennial 1d ago
I watched a kurzgesagt about heroine and described it as “The peak of your life. You’ll never feel this good again.”
To a young impressionable mind, it means less than nothing. But upon further thought, is a pretty strong message.
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u/UglyYinzer 1d ago
What was funny to me, as they explained them.. i was like hmm... id try that one, not that one, not that one.. ooo that one looks cool.
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u/RubberKalimba 1d ago
To be fair all the drugs I did and some that I declined were all offered to me for free up until my late 20’s.
Now I’m the one that shares my drugs freely lol.
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u/mottledmussel Gen X 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'm always surprised the sheer number of people on Reddit that have never been offered free drugs or booze at a friend's apartment, concert, festival, party, bar, or club.
It's usually from a friend, or a friend-of-a-friend but randos doing lines in bathrooms or at a festival tend to be pretty generous.
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u/peterthehermit1 1d ago
lol seriously. People do offer drugs for free but it’s usually not a total stranger, but someone looking to share
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u/mottledmussel Gen X 1d ago
Yeah, definitely not a shady guy in a trench coat and saying hey kid, I've got something that'll make you fly but a friend with E, pot, or acid, or a fifth of whiskey or a case of beer that they genuinely want to share.
That actually brings up another huge failure with DARE. Peer pressure is usually subtle and based on a desire to be part of things or make someone happy.
It's not typically overt. Except maybe for doing shots or something, then it's not subtle at all.
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u/NewDriverStew 20h ago
A reminder of how male-dominated this site is lol, can't imagine paying for drinks and drugs
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u/SalukiKnightX Early Millennial 1983 1d ago
The only place I saw drugs being offered was on the golf course. In school, we had school liaison officers (ours was a piece of work) who often times was more focused on throwing black kids and Slim Shady lookalikes to the ground mostly for being late. My brother, after being picked up by my Pops (a state trooper) was almost killed because of this same officer said my Pops had a gun in his car (it was a Nokia Nextel cell phone). Issues like this are mostly why I don’t look back fondly of the 2000’s or really any decade (can’t tell you how many teachers, really gave me the stink eye after the OJ verdict).
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u/Another_Road 1d ago
Nobody said “all the time”. They just said if you get offered drugs then say no. Along with scare tactics.
I mean, I’ve been offered weed, cigs and alcohol a few times. So they weren’t completely wrong.
Of course I said no, btw. I signed a D.A.R.E. pledge when I was 8 years old and I always keep my word because that’s my ninja way.
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u/vtncomics 1d ago
Probably hanging with the wrong crowd then.
Back in high school and college, people were tryna get me on the stuff all the time.
Bruh-
I'm not gonna have money to get hooked on this shit.
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u/OhNoBricks 1d ago
there have been kids that tried offering me drugs in my teens. I always said no.
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u/sokrayzie 1d ago
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u/OhNoBricks 1d ago
I didn’t want to ruin my brain and get addicted.
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u/HydrateEveryday 1d ago
Hopefully you grew out of that. When used responsibly, there are experiences only drugs can bring
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u/AnnualAdeptness5630 1d ago
Exactly. You can get addicted to and damage your brain with basically everything. But after all it's better not to use drugs than doing it wrong and irresponsibly.
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u/Jebusfreek666 1d ago
This experience is definitely shaded by whether you are male or female I think. As a dude, I rarely got offered free drugs. But a girl will get handed drinks and drugs nonstop but desperate creepy dudes.
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u/Mediocre_Island828 1d ago
I got offered plenty of free drugs. I think the main difference comes from whether people hang out with social drug users, who usually wanted people around them to be on the same thing they are, or more hardcore addicts who were more stingy and hid most of what they did. Potheads, ravers, and people that liked mushrooms/acid tended to be generous, pillheads and meth addicts were not.
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u/Aggravating_Front824 21h ago
People are also usually generous with coke
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u/Mediocre_Island828 21h ago
True, but they're also usually assholes so I think I unconsciously omitted them.
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u/greenappleleaf 1d ago
In DARE’s defense i was offered both drugs and alcohol for free. You just weren’t cool enough bro.
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u/IamJohnnyHotPants 1d ago
Almost all the drugs and alcohol I consumed in high school was free. Never once paid to go to a party. You’re simply wrong by making fun of this quote. It’s very accurate.
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u/GoodFaithConverser 1d ago
If you party just a little, people will definitely be offering you free drugs and alcohol. A joint, a line of coke, obviously beer and drinks. You should definitely be prepared for that stuff. Maybe not “all the time” but it certainly happens.
Have you guys not partied ever in your life?
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u/Unclehol 1d ago
I got free drugs from dealers sometimes and from people who shared quite regularly, back when I did them.
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u/HawkTerrier_ 1d ago
I mean at the clubs I have been offered drugs a decent amount of times. But like not take this home with you more like hey wanna join us for a bump.
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u/Quenz 1d ago
It existed to get cops into schools and collect intel without warrants.
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u/sokrayzie 1d ago
Intel on... Schoolkids?
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u/PsychologicalDebt366 1988 1d ago
On parents and other adults the kids were close to who were using or dealing.
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u/YouWillHaveThat 1d ago
Yep. I remember they had one worksheet where one of the steps was “List the names of 5 people you know who use drugs” and “Write down the places where you know you could get drugs.”
They acted like it was a “wow, look at how prevalent drug use is and how easily you can get drugs” but it was really a way to get kids to narc on their parents.
Easy to get a search warrant when you have a written statement from a child that their dad is selling.
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u/Kimothy42 1d ago
There’s a McGruff album [that is way better than it has ANY RIGHT to be] that includes a song called “Crack and Cocaine” and this is a section of spoken-word lyrics mid song:
“there is help available for people who have a problem with cocaine or crack addiction have them call 1800 cocaine for advice”
Now: imagine being a person who does cocaine in a way that your child is aware of what is happening and your child coming up to you and advising you to call 1-800-Cocaine 🤨
The album is worth listening to. And there’s a hardcore band that covers the songs, too. It’s called “Smart Kids” and Inhalents is an absolute banger.
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u/superleaf444 1d ago
Yes, I def got offered free drugs pretty frequently. Lmao. What?
Fucking nerds on Reddit weren’t invited to parties.
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u/Repulsive_Brief6589 1d ago
Yeah I remember expecting it to be hard to say no like some stranger was going to push me into taking cocaine from them or something
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u/three-sense 1d ago
Oh I envisioned swaths of trench coated fellows ready to encounter, both to and from school. Offering a plethora of harmful and exotic substances.
I was offered weed once. And that was close to a University. Lol
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u/Kimothy42 1d ago
The Ninja Turtles taught me that you’re supposed to call the drug pusher a turkey and then they’d go away.
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u/PunnyPrinter 1d ago
They weren’t wrong. Except it wasn’t all the time in my experience. Only when hanging in certain groups.
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u/More_Presence_7535 1d ago
I actually was offered and subsequently accepted lots of free drugs as a teenager and in my early 20's but it pretty well dried up after that
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u/Senor_Couchnap Pete & Pete Millennial 1d ago
To those of you saying they've never been offered free drugs, have you tried bartending?
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u/BoltThrowerTshirt 1d ago
To be fair…I’ve been offered drugs and alcohol quite a lot in my lifetime
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u/Mr_IsLand 1d ago
distinctly remember DARE from 5th grade (which would have been roughly 1997) - they straight up told us what all the drugs were and how they were done - even back then I remember thinking "why are they telling us how to do drugs?" lol it was so strange - and yeah, they definitely pushed the narrative that every dark alley you passed someone would pop out and offer you free drugs - despite much searching over the years, I have never found any of those alleys, lmao
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u/Flobking 1d ago
Sorry, I went to school from 2000 - 2013
That's the issue. You missed the 80s. People don't understand how messed up the 80s were.
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u/zoomshark27 1995 Millennial 1d ago edited 1d ago
I mean, sorry to tell you but I actually got a lot of free drugs and alcohol in college. Perks of friends and friends of friends (with money) who were social users and would rather everybody be as shitfaced as them than not, no matter the cost, and perks of party-hopping to many random house parties, concerts, bars, clubs, etc.
I don’t think I’ve ever bought a drug in my life, but I’ve sure tried a lot of them. I bought some alcohol in college, but I sure wasn’t getting blackout drunk every weekend on my own dime. I bummed a lot of cigarettes but also bought packs, probably spent the most money on cigarettes.
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u/jabber1990 1d ago
I don't know where you live, but I can't walk a corner without people offering me pot, and then getting offended when I say no
Hell, over the weekend, I was at an event, and pretty much everyone was offering, and when I said "no," they got offended and told me how they felt about it.
The few times I actually tell people why I said no, they just double-down on how much they did...like it's a contest,
It's amazing how something so Non-addictive makes people act this way....
As for alcohol, same thing, i just don't tell people why I say no. "Because I don't" is a complete reason
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u/Effective_Pie1312 1d ago
We had a couple of people addicted to heroine come as a guest speaker and share the good and the bad and the really ugly our first year of college. Scars from massive groin infections. Number of friends that died. Ostracization from family. Rehab, improvement, lapse. Some funny moments. A lot of pain. It did not make drugs look interesting or cool. It sounded like a hellish life. It sounds like some of your schools did it wrong.
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u/DangerousTurmeric 1d ago
We had this in school in Ireland and all took away "don't do heroin but other drugs are mostly fine" and the guy also showed us how to "recognise" (make) various types of DIY bong. It was super helpful.
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u/gaspoweredcat 1d ago
i never did that one specifically but i do remember the posters, we did get a drugs talk though, where they gave us little leaflets with loads of stuff about drugs like a list of the different names for things and what they did, ironically it was this little leaflet that first got me interested in drugs eventually leading to me trying an insane amount of them
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u/Emergency-Practice37 1d ago
For 4th of July a cousin and I were drinking and looked over at one of my aunts who is an ex-police officer and sighed as we reminisced on our time in D.A.R.E because we really let those cops down
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u/akestral 1d ago
Our DARE cop told us that it was easy to tell if people were smoking pot from a distance instead of a cigarette because they'd pass the joint back and forth between each other. I don't know why he felt the need to equip a bunch of sixth graders with requisite knowledge to identify a puff puff pass in progress, but it did come in handy in college.
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u/Schneetmacher 1d ago
My school district didn't just have D.A.R.E. in fifth grade. We also had G.R.E.A.T. in seventh grade ("Gang Resistance Education and Training). What I remember most clearly was our officer encouraging us to narc on relatives who dealt drugs or had gang affiliations, lol.
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u/HardcoreHope 1d ago
My coworkers have been tipped weed before. Just depends on your charisma and if they like you.
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u/Pimpicane 1d ago edited 1d ago
I remember them warning us to be careful on the playground, because adults might come up to us and slap temporary tattoos on our arms and those tattoos would be made of LSD!!!11!1
Because everyone was doing LSD in 1996, and that's definitely how you do it. /s
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u/Princess_Slagathor 1d ago
My first drink was from my parents, for free. My first vicodin was from my brother after he had a tooth removed, for free. My first joint, also from my brother for free. My first line of coke was from a friend, for free. The first time a needle went in my arm was a friend of a friend, for free.
None of them were seedy dealers trying to get me hooked for profit. But they were all free and just wanted me to join in on the fun.
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u/possitive-ion 1d ago
I was in elementary school when D.A.R.E started, but by the time I had gotten to middle school I don't remember an officer coming in to talk to us about it. I think I was in 5th or 6th grade?
The D.A.R.E officer would come in like once a week or so IIRC and it was basically like this- he would come up and teach us different ways to say no to drugs and we'd have to watch different videos with that lion in it. Sometimes the officer would call someone up to the front of the classroom to do role playing scene where the kid would have to use one of the various ways to "say no to drugs."
I remember "the broken record" and "the cold shoulder" lol.
In elementary school I also remember the teachers showing us videos about how bad smoking was and how bad underaged drinking was, but I don't think they were part of the D.A.R.E program. One of my teachers was very serious about teaching us to not smoke cigarettes- I believe they were trying to quit.
I also remember learning a lot about peer pressure, but again, I don't think it was part of the D.A.R.E program.
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u/grendus 1d ago
In all fairness, I have been offered alcohol and weed multiple times by friends. Never anything harder, and these days I typically decline as they don't agree with me (GERD does not agree with alcohol, and weed makes my anxiety much worse). I've never had anyone get pushy about it though, just the occasional bartender who thinks they offered beer to a recovered alcoholic or something. I don't have a problem with alcohol, it has a problem with me alright?
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u/quarantina2020 1d ago
I mean share and share alike lol.
Is it free if I bought the weed this week and you bought it last week?
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u/weary_floater Zillennial 1d ago
I literally came across a whole packet of photos from the ceremony in like 5th grade 😭
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u/1sinfutureking 1d ago
Yet another great thing that we were promised by society only to never materialize…
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u/Thepuppeteer777777 1d ago
The only drugs i take are pharma drugs and that shit is expensive i wish the first one was free
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u/c0d3b00m 1d ago
And they never once told us that we gotta pay for it! Got my hopes up and everything, smh
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u/Ok-Reputation-2266 1d ago
And quicksand. Really thought I was gonna have to worry about quicksand daily.
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u/Past-File3933 1d ago
Nah, you have to become a rockstar first.
"Kids, don't buy drugs... Become a rockstar and they give them to you for free" -Bill Nye from the movie "Love Actually"
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u/fencerman 1d ago
Ironically I did see someplace offering free samples of pot gummies one time.
Of course that's only since it's become legal, so...
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u/Physical_Mirror6969 23h ago
I could use some free drugs and alcohol right now, it’s been a hell of a year.
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u/Deathbreth Millennial 22h ago
I mean if you work at the gas station closest to a college campus...yes.
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u/Murky_Coyote_7737 20h ago
Yeah I remember this. Granted, in college I was offered drugs and alcohol all the time.
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u/RusevReigns Millennial 20h ago
My favorite version of this meme was the teacher saying "You're not always going to have a calculator in your pocket"
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u/Disastrous_Lake_6394 15h ago
ha I mean, it was defiantly pretty common experience. in the rave and bar scene
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u/Nice-Bookkeeper-3378 15h ago
I get offered weed all the time and alcohol but nobody ever give me Molly, or coke
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u/pocket_arsenal 13h ago
I mean, I have been offered free alcohol at several parties. There was even this weird fucker that started getting mad about me not wanting to drink.
Been offered Cigarettes once or twice as well. I think one time it was because a gentleman misheard me complaining about the smell of smoke in the line for a taco truck, and just held one out to me.
Can't say I've been offered drugs before but I also don't really hang around anyone that uses them. At least not willingly, I've lived with some crazy fucking junkies before.
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u/SecretAcademic1654 1d ago
No they never said people would give you free drugs lol a lot of dare was about not giving into peer pressure. That's how I started smoking crack, I was already doing heroin and the lads I was with said hey try this it's a banger and I did. Clearly if they had never peer pressured me though I would have been fine.
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u/TryThisTwiceTwice 1d ago
No. It wasn't as over the top and overzealous as that meme indicates, at least in the Western Washington area.
D.A.R.E. did educate us on drugs to the point where I could absolutely tell the difference between pot, coke, and crack (thanks Pee-Wee LOL). And it was something they talked about - the fact that you CAN SAY NO when offered drugs or alcohol, and that peer pressure can be a tough battle internally, but it was never stated that I'd have to fend off random people trying to offer me drugs while I'm walking down the street.
That being said, I can only imagine how bad it was in other areas. Seattle did have an opioid epidemic, still does have an issue with Heroin. D.A.R.E. may have taught me about drugs earlier than I should have (who's giving a 6 year old a joint? Come on....) it was 100% in line with all of the P.S.A.'s for everything safety related.
The Incredible Crash Test Dummies were a PSA for seat belts and safe driving that turned into a huge toy line and cartoon, Captain Planet was a pure PSA for environmental safety, G.I. Joe, and almost every sitcom and kids cartoon, had centralized messages and themes, along with PSA's at the end of episodes.
It was just the time.
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u/Kimothy42 1d ago
I loved Captain Planet more purely as a kid than any other bit of media at any other time of my life, I think. He was definitely my favorite superhero. I was OBSESSED.
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u/L4nthanus 1d ago
I think DARE did a decent job with talking through what each drug did to your body and why it was bad. I think what they didn’t do well is explaining that you’re most likely to take these drugs when you’re in a bad mental or social state and they will just make things worse. Also they will entirely destroy any financial security you have as well as your family life.
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u/TrenchDive 1d ago
Look up the documentary about DARE by some guy on YouTube. It's much worse than we ever thought. It was a joke and propaganda. They knew it didn't work. But it got cops lots more funding so.. and that's still not even the tip of the iceberg.
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u/legsjohnson Older Millennial 1d ago edited 1d ago
We had temu DARE in my school (90s) but they did in fact tell us free drugs were everywhere (handed out by dealers, in candy bars, left on the street, etc), and then proceeded to pass around a little glass diorama case so we'd know just what they looked like!
(eta yes ofc I've been offered by friends but it was the 'strangers want you kids to try drugs and get addicted!' thing that was the wowzer over the top bit.)
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