Lights up on a typical American high school hallway. First-year Johnny has been cornered on his way to math class by some upperclassmen from a “tough crowd.” One of the bigger boys calls out to Johnny, “Hey kid! Want a cigarette? Everyone else is doing it.” Johnny, a proud graduate of D.A.R.E., knows peer pressure when he hears it. He knows that not everyone else is smoking “ciggies.” He firmly replies, “No thanks,” and walks away.

If you went through D.A.R.E. or some other drug-education program, you should have a scene like this branded into your memory. In the videos, the drug crowd always consisted of sketchy strangers, usually approaching you from a dark corner or a dim stairwell with no adults around. The druggies would push drugs and alcohol, constantly reminding you, “Everyone else is doing it; you want to look cool, right?” or, “Cigarettes aren’t bad for you, that’s made up bologna!” There might even be threats involved, such as, “Drink this beer or we’ll give you a swirly!” P.S. Has anyone actually experienced a swirly? I was always morbidly curious about those. …

It was this combat-zone we trained for. We, the drug-free youth of America, learned the counter-strategies to survive in this high school drug war. Armed with our “Just Say No!” pens and “8 Ways to Say No” bookmarks, we prepared ourselves for a lion’s den of peer pressure, keggars and toilet-dunkings.

But all was quiet on the public drug front. Why? Because D.A.R.E. prepared us for imaginary scenarios that would never occur in real life. They trained us for the proverbial World War II when it was really more like Vietnam (the bad guys were more difficult to spot, anyway; it’s not like pot-heads wore cardboard signs saying, “HEY ADMINISTRATION, SEARCH MY LOCKER WITH GERMAN SHEPHERDS!”).

A high school drug pusher would never walk up to an absolute stranger and offer drugs, let alone back them with threats of violence (like the swirly I never got). Cigarettes are running between twelve and fifteen dollars a carton these days; why would you waste the cash on some little first-year weinie who’d tattle on you? That’s like buying a Mustang and tossing the keys at someone you’ve never met. Hell naw.

In the real world, D.A.R.E. videos would have played as follows: Lights up on a high school hallway. A group of shaggy-haired youths loiters around some lockers. First-year Johnny passes them on the way to math class. The toughs do not give him a second look and instead continue reminiscing about the latest Modest Mouse concert.

The D.A.R.E. videos also maintained that drug users did not believe their drugs were bad for them, that it was all “The Man” making up stuff to scare you. Maybe that was the mindset back in the 1950s, with advertisements telling teenagers about the healthy, “neat-o” way to puff up in the morning. But those days are long gone. Nowadays you know cigarettes are bad for you; THAT’S WHY YOU’D SMOKE THEM, IDIOT! The badass factor would evaporate if cigarettes improved your health; why do you think broccoli is so unpopular? High schoolers start smoking because it taps into the James Dean, masochistic, Rebel Without a Cause philosophy: “I’m a tragic, misunderstood youth with bigger problems than you’d ever comprehend, man. The nicotine, while poisoning me, helps me cope with the stress of a privileged white upbringing.”

Of course, the joke’s on them after three weeks when they become chemically addicted to an astronomically expensive carcinogen stick. Who’s a badass now, Dean?

There is inevitably also a social group posing as badass druggies, but in reality they are too cowardly (or have GPAs that are too high) to try inhaling. These faux-druggies (or Fruggies) are the metaphorical James Freys and Vanilla Ices of the drug world. To them, the seduction of shaggy-haired sk8tr lifestyle is just too tempting to ignore.

And finally, D.A.R.E. failed to mention the key factor in peer pressure: your peers must deem you cool enough to pressure you. I never smoked or drank in high school because I was too big of a nerd to be offered anything. My raging parties were mostly theatre cast parties with cake, cookies and Kool-Aid. The biggest surprises happened if a techie boldly crossed over the invisible line and made conversation with an actor. An aggrieved silence usually ensued.

While D.A.R.E. provided me with a white t-shirt that all my fifth grade friends signed, it failed to provide realistic expectations about the “big kid world.” While well-intentioned, it was probably the biggest propaganda machine of the 1990s, giving me delusions of grandeur about my social life and breeding paranoia about kids in shady hallways.

And I’m still waiting for my swirly.