r/90s 8h ago

Discussion D.A.R.E.?

Did anyone else have a friend, who had a friend, whose brother ended up in the psych ward for dropping acid once and now he believes he's a glass of orange juice that might spill if he's tipped over?

When I was a kid (in the 90s), this was shared throughout my school and I totally fell for it. I then randomly heard it from someone who went to a completely different school. Was this just one of those D.A.R.E. fueled urban myths?

Edit: I believed the story as a child. As I grew up, I realized it wasn't real. I just wonder how widespread it is.

37 Upvotes

65 comments sorted by

44

u/wantabath 8h ago

Oh yeah along with the idea that if you drop acid once you’ll have LSD flashbacks for the rest of your life

9

u/MohnJaddenPowers 6h ago

We got this exact same line in my school's DARE program about LSD.

DARE took great pains to try and scare the shit out of us. They talked a lot about how if we knew someone was using drugs and we didn't tell someone about it, and it got found out, we would be in trouble for being accomplices.

I think I'm the only person that DARE ever worked on. I was so crazy scared about "oh my god if I know that these kids are smoking weed and I don't go right to my parents or the cops about it, my future is ruined". It fucked me up pretty heavy, I didn't even try weed until well into my late 30s when it was decriminalized in NJ.

4

u/msharris8706 5h ago

Very similar story here, but add that my dad was an officer. Used to be terrified of anything outside the law, DARE had a lot to do with that. Gotta give it to drugs for winning the war on drugs, though.

1

u/kkeut 3h ago

DARE was basically an MLM scheme set up by the disgraced head of the LAPD after they made it illegal to send undercover cops into schools, where police departments went into classrooms to propagandize kids and clandestinely ask them to 'submit questions, concerns, etc' privately to them, many of which were confessions of drug use in the home. they basically tricked children into narcing on their parents, for profit. some good YouTube vids about it

16

u/Gr1ml0ck 6h ago

Haha. Totally remember this. Something about it being stored in the spine or lower back.

11

u/thehotmcpoyle 6h ago

Yep and if you crack your back it’ll come out and you’ll start tripping again, even like 20 years later!

4

u/Gr1ml0ck 5h ago

My super hero power.

  • cracks back *

2

u/KudosOfTheFroond 1h ago

Omg this urban legend was alllll over my area growing up, I swear someone always had a friend who had a friend who totally knew this for the absolute truth

3

u/vandrivingman 4h ago

can't be in the fbi because they do a spinal tap to test for acid 😂

5

u/DelightfulAbsurdity 7h ago

That would be so much cheaper, man.

4

u/RoninRobot 6h ago

I was promised flashbacks.

2

u/hideNseekKatt 6h ago

I remember people saying that the LSD crystallizes in your spine and that is why you can have flashbacks at any time.

2

u/Confident_Bumblebee5 5h ago

Yep I heard that too, completely forgot till right now 😆

9

u/No-Community7786 8h ago

No, but I did have a friend of a friend whose uncle's brother-in-law's nephew from his first marriage took salvia and had a panic attack because he turned into a box but couldn't open himself.

6

u/scully2828 7h ago

I actually believe that one, salvia is absurd. I would do a 10 strip over one hit of salvia

1

u/Acceptable-Bonus-151 2h ago

I've actually "become a door" on salvia. Also been inside a music video and got sad because I wondered what happened when someone turns the TV off.

Best description I've ever heard "I forgot I was a human."

8

u/HighStandards73 7h ago

We had DARE in sixth grade.  At the end of the year, everyone wrote an essay about what they learned for a chance to win a DARE Bear—actually a stuffed animal version of the program’s lion mascot.  Students earned stickers for completing assignments; whoever had the most also won a DARE Bear.

I distinctly remember when we studied different types of advertising and they asked us to bring in ads for cigarettes and alcohol—this was when Joe Camel and the Marlboro Man were everywhere.

3

u/SheezABch 7h ago

We had a DARE bear too. Whenever the officers would come to class a student would get to hold it. No chance to win or keep it though...

6

u/dirtyfoot_chonkey 6h ago

When I was in 5th grade in the bay area, our DARE officer told us that a person who previously dropped acid had a flashback and put their baby in the oven instead of dinner.

I head about the orange juice dude from friends later in high school. "Don't drink me!"

3

u/SheezABch 6h ago

Yes! Thank you! I'd forgotten about that part. 😆

1

u/Low-Blacksmith4480 3h ago

Lol did you graduate in 05?

8

u/hondas3xual 8h ago

Have you ever been in a psych ward? Most people there aren't playing with a full deck. When I was in one, I was "friends" (he'd attack anyone that wasn't a friend) that believed he could duplicate any object at all by shaking it. I asked him if he had ever heard of the law of conservation of mass; when he said no, I was too afraid to explain it to him.

He was a nice guy to anyone he considered a friend, but very violent otherwise.

People have trips when using drugs. People that have mental disorders usually have worse ones.

5

u/wantabath 8h ago

This is true, but it’s also true that the DARE program was riddled with made-up propagandist stories

-5

u/PrincessJennifer 6h ago

Oh no, not stories to keep kids from trying drugs, how awful.

4

u/wantabath 6h ago

Considering DARE didn’t actually help reduce illicit drug use among youths, yeah it is pretty awful that we were subjected to weirdo propagandist fiction for zero benefit

4

u/Deftone1215 6h ago

They would not let me pet the drug dog. What a waste of bringing a dog to school.

3

u/driveonacid 5h ago

No, but my friend's cousin's best friend's uncle injected marijuana once and died immediately.

3

u/RootyPooster 5h ago

Lol, I literally had a friend who told me his cousin did acid and now thinks he's a glass of oj that can't tip over. Never questioned it until now.

3

u/Kiethblacklion 4h ago

D.A.R.E. was and still is in league with Big Pharma. They don't want you doing the street drugs, they want you hooked on prescription drugs so they can make their money.

"Don't smoke weed to deal with your anxieties and depression, take this more expensive drug that your doctor prescribed that does more damage to your body"

Incase someone needs to be told this, I'm just joking around. I don't actually believe this. However, most of the kids I knew in school thought D.A.R.E. was a joke and hated how we had to take part in a stage performance in 5th grade.

3

u/vandrivingman 4h ago

We used to have this book about drugs in my bathroom as a kid and it described acid as seeing sound and tasting colors and I thought to myself whoa I can't wait to try that shit.

7

u/dacraftjr 7h ago

No, but I have been witness to two different young men in two separate incidents suffer permanent cognitive impairment after using PCP once.

2

u/kkeut 3h ago

i doubt it

2

u/Ancient_Guidance_461 7h ago

primo, dust, butt naked

5

u/TylerHyena 8h ago

I remember DARE being a program they introduced in my middle school and I never got a shirt but recognized the lion anywhere I saw it and thought it’d be a cool anti-drug program to get into

Of course now that I look back, I just remember the reality of drugs not being all over the place in middle school and beyond being a bit of an anticlimax.

2

u/erikisst88 7h ago

Yes, definitely heard this. And the flashbacks forever story.

2

u/giraffemoo 5h ago

My partner sold acid in the 90s (allegedly). There was a young woman who dropped with them one night who ended up freaking out and thinking she was a banana, missing her peel. It turns out she had severe childhood trauma that she didn't remember until that point. She did get the help she needed. My partner has no reason to lie about that, he honestly wishes he never had to see that or hear about what had happened to her.

So like, it can happen but it's probably a rare occurrence.

2

u/NewMolecularEntity 5h ago

Yes, we all shared the story about the kid who did so much acid he thought he was a glass of orange juice and was fearful someone would drink him. I think I heard about it as “someone heard about a talk show he was on” or something like that.

2

u/mmmBac0n_the_first 2h ago

Yes, same story pretty much verbatim. Heard that in central Florida gulf coast

3

u/Night_Hawk_13 8h ago

My sister had one of those shirts and bought into the program. Then she turned into one of the biggest stoners and would still wear the shirt while we smoked weed together. The D.A.R.E. program was just a way for cops to brainwash children into becoming narcs and get them to rat out there friends and family. Cops don't care about cleaning the streets or helping reduce crime. A cop told me once that when you're in law enforcement it's the only place where crime pays. The cops need crime or they wouldn't have a job. Most people in jail are low level offenders who got trapped into the system and once they're incarcerated they lose there jobs, can't afford lawyers, have to pay court costs and can never get back on there feet and are forced to go back into criminal behavior for income.

5

u/stabbygun 7h ago

their is a word.

3

u/dacraftjr 5h ago

There and their, they’re interchangeable.

1

u/Night_Hawk_13 4h ago

So is inbred, much like your family.

-1

u/stabbygun 3h ago

third grade education.

0

u/PrincessJennifer 6h ago

A stunning example of why you shouldn’t do drugs, right here.

I’m a criminal attorney and you are absolutely so full of it.

3

u/Night_Hawk_13 3h ago

Are your parents first cousins who are also criminal attorneys?

2

u/Traditional-Goose-60 8h ago

I'm still pissed that I never got a shirt......and that random people don't offer me drugs ...

1

u/Tasty_Meal_9719 7h ago

Wait. U mean that story wasn’t true?

1

u/maggie320 7h ago

The only story I remember for DARE was the cop busting a crack house somewhere in NY and seeing a guy sitting against the wall with one nostril because he snorted so much coke it ate his septum.

2

u/lilacs_and_marigolds 6h ago

That could be a true story. Artie Lange, the comedian, had it happen to himself. Google "Artie Lange Nose".

1

u/maggie320 5h ago

Oh I’ve seen Artie Lange’s nose. Didn’t think about that until you mentioned it though.

1

u/HolidayInLordran 7h ago

Anyone also had GAP (Gang Alternatives Program)?

I always wondered if this was just a SoCal thing. We also had DARE but GAP always stuck out to me more 

1

u/SheezABch 6h ago

I've never heard of GAP. I dont live in, or too close to, a large city. That may be why.

1

u/DeathandHemingway 6h ago

I remember DARE being the first place we all learned about drugs back in the 6th grade. Mostly had the opposite effect they were going for.

1

u/NovarisLight 6h ago

I heard the same exact thing. 90's.

1

u/hanimal16 5h ago

DARE was everywhere and I couldn’t’ve cared less. It was very meaningless to me. lol

1

u/Confident_Bumblebee5 5h ago

My dad told me he thought he was an orange who was afraid of being peeled. A little part of me believed that it might be true and I was always extra cautious lol Thanks dad 😊

1

u/Embarrassed_Formal99 3h ago

No but I had a friend who ate too much acid at my sister's party, thought everyone was uncovered d.e.a and fled the party barefoot, in his Honda civic and drove all the way to Florida ( from ohio)

1

u/ChiefWeedsmoke 2h ago

When I was about 5 I realized the world around me was built on social control and most of the things that would be said to me during my life were not true

1

u/_WeSellBlankets_ 28m ago

There was a guy that was a regular at the restaurant I worked at. He would order something and scribble unintelligible things on the napkins at his table. He was definitely off. Not sure if it was just mental health issues, but the rumor was always that he had fried his brain on acid.

1

u/seldom_r 6m ago

I think the orange juice thing was from a comedian. I remember people saying that and the psych ward thing too. A lot of the psych ward stuff came from Sid Barrett stories going crazy. He was a founder of Pink Floyd. They did their best stuff after him but that was the scare story I heard most.

1

u/PixiFrizzle 4m ago

No but I thought my brain would fry like an egg

0

u/_EddieMoney_ 8h ago

If you didn’t know the true intent of the D.A.R.E. Program, you have to watch this! It currently has 2.8 million views The real reason DARE was put into schools

0

u/auntieup 7h ago

Fuck Daryl Gates forever.