Jeff Sessions’s praise of DARE shows he just can’t quit the 1980s

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Jeff Sessions’s praise of DARE shows he just can’t quit the 1980s

13 July 2017

It was peak Jeff Sessions, the moment that showed exactly what the country is getting under President Donald Trump’s attorney general: Ignoring decades of scientific evidence, Sessions praised an anti-drug program — DARE — straight out of the 1980s “tough on crime” playbook.

Speaking at a DARE conference, Sessions said, “DARE is, I think, the best remembered anti-drug program today. In recent years, people have not paid much attention to that message, but they are ready to hear it again. … We know it worked before, and we can make it work again.”

DARE was largely based on one idea: If you tell kids about how bad drugs are, they will be so scared that they will not use them. The program leveraged this to try to teach kids how to say no to drugs.

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Thumbnail: CC Wikimedia Gage Skidmore