D.A.R.E. psyop
Level 3 – Deep Web
Have you thought about who the DARE program was directed towards? Children who were too young to understand the concept of addiction. The slogan Drug Abuse Resistance Education sounds confusing to children and they likely only connect with a portion of the words, Drug something, something, Education. Then they gave out the shirts. Not bright colored, positive looking shirts with happy logos, the shirts were goth black with rock band looking logos on them. One might argue that the design was intentional, it was supposed to attract the cool crowd to the program, but the kids were so young they hadn’t even explored their identity enough to associate the shirts to a band they like or designs that they prefer. And speaking of the program, it consisted of what? A 30 minute forgettable lecture and then they passed out a bunch of swag to the students. I think the DARE program did a couple of things, #1 it identified children who were candidates for drug addicts, how? The kids that gravitated towards the shirts and the program probably wanted to know more about drugs, wanted to know more about a fringe culture. The #2 part was the US government realized they needed more drug addicts. The DARE program was supposed to be in reaction to the crack epidemic of the 1980’s, but the DARE program was visible in the neighborhoods that crack affected the most, the DARE program focused on the suburbs and middle class areas. This served as a pacifier to the citizens that had concerns about drug issues rising in the US and as a doorway to the upcoming opioid epidemic. By making drug usage more familiar to the regular household. The US has been fluffing its budgets via drugs in a black market that was frowned upon by many, but after making ties with pharmaceutical companies they were able to increase their sales and stay on the “right side” of the deal.