D.A.R.E. (yes, that D.A.R.E.) accidentally endorsed legalizing marijuana

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published 31 July 2015

On Thursday afternoon, anti-drug organization D.A.R.E. published a surprising op-ed on its site. "I support [marijuana] legalization precisely because I want to reduce youths' drug use," the article argued. "We already tried alcohol prohibition and it was a violent catastrophe, too. Please don't let Ohio be known as one of the last bastions of marijuana hysteria."

As the news coverage piled up ("The war on drugs is over, and weed won," declared New York), the article disappeared (see a screenshot of the post before it was taken down here). In an emailed statement to The Washington Post, D.A.R.E. regional director John Lindsay clarified that D.A.R.E. does "not support legalization nor do we advoate [sic] for legalization of marijuana." Lindsay suggested that the op-ed's title, "Purchasing Marijuana Puts Kids at Risk," was the source of the mistake.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.