Dissing D.A.R.E.: Education as Spectacle

D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) is a hyper-war waged on over 20 million children in the United States. Despite overwhelming evidence of its educational ineffectiveness, D.A.R.E. has gained a religious following among educators and parents, and is the only federally-funded drug education program. D.A.R.E.'s imagistic and psychological assault is based on the presence of uniformed gun-toting police officers in the classroom. While grounded in the specificity of D.A.R.E., Dissing D.A.R.E.: Education As Spectacle is an allegorical rant about the cultural dominance of image over substance, hysteria over reason.