Comments on Ironic D.A.R.E. T-Shirts Are Played Out

How about a bracelet that says, "Only smoke pot on the weekends," or, "Wait six weeks between doses of ecstasy," you know, useful drug information?

"I know BETTER than to HAVE SEX BEFORE MARRIAGE."

Red Ribbon Week has being going on for years. In our high school, one day during red ribbon week the "Grim Reaper" would come around and "kill" a person that died from drunk driving, and then that person would change into black and couldn't talk the rest of the day. You could always tell someone was going to die because the Reaper would ring a bell. It was interesting, to say the least. I graduated about 5 years ago, and they were doing it when I started there in 7th grade.

Red Ribbon Week has been around for a while. I have a really rockin' picture of me tying up red ribbons in a New Kids t-shirt. And sadly I was doing neither in an ironic way.

DON'T do drugs. If you see someone doing drugs, TELL their parents. You can count on ME to be sober. WHAT is gained by doing drugs? Aren't there better things TO DO? ASSHOLE.

Here in Canada, they've been using the red ribbon as the "support our troops" ribbon, in addition to a few other colours. Keep the camouflage-green ribbons, but leave red alone, bitches...

The current fad for ribbons of all colors owes everything to the original red AIDS ribbon from--what? 15?--years ago. And I'll bet that most of the people sporting those things on their cars don't even know that the "shape" came from the campaign for AIDS awareness. Figures.

Goddamn I want one of those braclets...

Um...maybe people should just stop wearing little bracelets with political/religious messages on them altogether! How about a bracelet that just says, "Wow, look how much my lover spent on me!" or "Ain't I a pretty thing?" or simply, "My Precioussssss"? Political bumper stickers, WWJD t-shirts, and redneck humor hats can go too for all I care. Want to get your message out? Try complete sentences!

I went to elementary school in Oklahoma from '86-'92, and I remember having them then. It didn't occur to me until later how this was pretty blatantly trying to "take" the red ribbon movement away from the AIDS crisis.

I was in elementary school in Oklahoma
'83-'89, but I don't remember exactly when they started. Wikipedia says 1986, so I'll buy that.

By the way, how is having the Grim Reaper going around campus "killing" drunk drivers and then making them play dead any different from those teachers who brought a noose to class and looped it around some kid's neck to demonstrate what Jena 6 was about to a bunch of elementary school kids? So it's okay to demonstrate the consequences of not saying "NO!", but not okay to demonstrate what lynching means or how to use a condom?

Actually @7, you can blame that awful, awful Tony Orlando & Dawn song from 1973, "Tie A Yellow Ribbon (Round The Ole Oak Tree)", and the subsequent appropriation of "yellow ribbions" as a show of support for U.S. embassy employees taken hostage by Iranian student revolutionaries in 1979. Yellow ribbons subsequently were used to symbolize support for Gulf War I veterans starting in 1990.

IIRC, red AIDS ribbons, and the accompanying "looped ribbon" symbol came into use shortly thereafter, and were first prominently displayed during the 1991 Tony Awards broadcast.

I became aware of Red Ribbon Week when my kid came home from 2nd grade last week with a red ribbon sticker saying "Too Good For Drugs". He said the police man gave it to him and he had no idea what it meant. Apparently they were too busy handing out stickers to actually say anything about drugs, which is something to be grateful for I guess.

Over the summer I had a long talk with him about drugs, what different drugs do, why people take them, and the risks of using drugs. I tried to leave him with the message that recreational drugs have effects that some people enjoy, along with risks, that just because a drug is legal doesn't make it safer than an illegal drug, that drugs can be especially damaging to children, and that when grown-ups choose to use drugs they also need to accept any possible negative consequences. I told him that if he ever had any questions about drugs, he should ask me or his dad because we'll always answer honestly. He was very engaged in the conversation and I could tell he took in the message and really thought about it, even at his young age.

After this success of that conversation, seeing that sticker with the insipid slogan on his his shirt was... horrifying. I think now I better understand how those bible thumping parents feel about sex-ed in schools. My only question is: Can I opt-out of drug education at school?

This is clearly a manufacturing error, as the bracelets were supposed to say "DO BETTER DRUGS", not the nonsensical "BETTER DO DRUGS".