DARE is only useless at it's
stated goal; to teach school children to reject recreational drugs. But I don't think that was ever the real objective. If we wanted to teach kids, or adults for that matter, about drugs we'd send in a pharmacist or a nurse or a med student or someone else w/ some claim to expertise about drugs. Instead, we send in armed law enforcement officers to cultivate snitches, condition the kids and the faculty and, by extension, the rest of us to being under surveilance all the time. IMO, DARE has been a smashing success at achieving that objective.
Remember that Betty Sembler, cofounder of Straight, Inc., has been on the BOD of DARE, America and DARE, International for decades. They may be crazy, but they ain't dumb. They don't throw money and influence away on programs and projects that fail to meet their objectives.
It's obnoxious to ask law enforcement to follow the law. That's insulting to every cop.
--John Lovell, lobbyist for the California police chief's association