"Dare, or the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, was created in 1983 by the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County school district. From the start, the program was a success. Its stated goal was "to equip elementary-school children with skills for resisting peer pressure to experiment with tobacco, drugs and alcohol." The initiative was embraced by police departments and politicians, and within just a few years the Dare curriculum had spread to more than three-quarters of the country's school districts."
"The man had previously been arrested four times for driving while drunk but had mostly avoided serious punishment-a pattern that continued when he was found guilty of vehicular manslaughter for Lightner's death but given a sentence of only twenty-one months, with a portion spent in a halfway house."
Republicans have become adept at creating broad coalitions in which supporting Trump is the only requirement. Democrats get tied up with litmus tests that constrain coalition-building and limit outreach. Two 1980s organizations illustrate different grassroots dynamics: Dare and madd. Dare (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) was created in 1983 by the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County school district with the goal to equip elementary-school children with skills for resisting peer pressure to experiment with tobacco, drugs and alcohol. The Dare curriculum spread to most U.S. school districts, reached millions of students, attracted major funding, and received praise from the White House and corporations. madd's origins were far less auspicious, beginning after the 1980 death of thirteen-year-old Cari Lightner; her mother, Candy, quit her job in real estate to found Mothers Against Drun
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