Roll out the VCR and pull up a folding chair, because it’s time for a good ol’ PSA. That’s right, we’re going old-school this week at This Was a Thing, and rewinding to a more innocent time when the classrooms were full of happiness, juice boxes, and policemen leading improvisation exercises where you pretended to sell drugs to your friends. 

Rob teaches Ray about Drug Abuse Resistance Education, a.k.a. D.A.R.E., and how it grew from a small pilot program in L.A. schools to a multi-million dollar, tax-funded behemoth taught to kids across the country; why Rob takes issue with Nancy Reagan’s famous three-line slogan; Ray’s memories from his own D.A.R.E. experience; the controversy that erupted after when studies demonstrated that D.A.R.E.’s methods might actually be counterproductive; Rob’s favorite celebrity anti-drug PSAs; the program’s iconic merch; and what D.A.R.E.’s fall from prominence tells us about the United States’s changing opinion about drug education.

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TEAM

Ray Hebel

Robert W. Schneider

Mark Schroeder

Billy Recce

Daniel Schwartzberg

Gabe Crawford

Natalie DeSavia

ARTICLESEPISODE CLIPS

Reefer Madness Original Trailer - 1936 (Not the Full film)

Helen Hunt , Just Say “No”! (Or, “Mad About Crank”)

“Just Say No” Nancy Reagan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB4rVJsy8z8)

Nancy Reagan on Diff’rent Strokes

Dare commercial

12:21:1992 D a R E on Channel 6 News

Newcomerstown Elementary 1985 D.A.R.E. Program

News of the Death of John Belushi 1982

Len Bias: News Report of His Death: June 19, 1986

A Very Special Episode | Punky Brewster - Just Say No

1987 Classic “Brain Frying Pan” + “From You!” Drug PSAs Tv Commercial

Pee Wee Herman Talks About Crack Cocaine - PSA

Dea Say No to Drugs Ads 1980s compilation

D. a. R. E. Program Officials Admit Defeat; the Failure of the War on Drugs (1993)

ADDITIONAL MUSIC & SOUND EFFECTS

“Happy Bee” and “Hotrock”

• Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

• Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0

• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Additional Sound Effects from Final Cut Pro, iLife, and Logic Pro