D.A.R.E. Accidentally Republishes Fake News Story Warning of ‘Marijuana Flintstones Vitamins’

[hayesc0]

"Marijuana candies, sold on the street as ‘Uncle Tweety’s Chewy Flipper’ and ‘Gummy Satans’ are taking the country by storm." That's the breathless opening sentence of a news story posted on the Web site ofD.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), the infamous anti-drug organization that sends police into schools to teach kids about the dangers of drug use.

After I called to inquire about it, D.A.R.E. removed the story immediately without commenting. But it's been preserved at the Internet Archive, and I've screenshotted it in full below. "It is sad that in a country as developed as America, such third world drugs such as marijuana are allowed to exist," the story's anonymous author wrote. "Children are being addicted to marijuana. I knew this day would come, when a liberal president allowed a state to legally sell Marijuana Flintstone Vitamins to children."

"Marijuana. It is one of the most dangerous drugs on Earth," the author concludes ominously. "For every one joint of marijuana, four teenagers become burdened with pregnancy."

Shocking, no? The people at D.A.R.E. certainly thought so, enough that they reposted the entire story, titled "Edible Marijuana Candies Kill 9 in Colorado, 12 at Coachella" from topekasnews.com. The only problem is that topekasnews.com is a satire Web site, one of dozens posting fake-but-just-barely-believable stories online. The marijuana story is fake, as are the numbers it cites.

The "author" of the story is one Haywood Bynum III, whose other bylines include "Is It Time For America To Invade The Middle East and Rename It New America," "German Soccer Team Uses Nazi Super Soldier Serum To Beat Brazil 7-1, Risks Start of World War III" and "Are Women Even People, Really?"

These fake news sites are everywhere, and they're a pox on the Internet as a whole. D.A.R.E. certainly isn't the first outlet to be taken in by one. But the calculus becomes different when you're an organization ostensibly dedicated to educating the public on a given topic. By publishing a satirical piece on the dangers of marijuana, D.A.R.E. risks undermining its message.

The organization's heyday was in the 1980s and 1990s, when the anti-drug movement was at its most intense. D.A.R.E. focused a lot of its energies on discouraging drug use by kids, but multiple studies have found that the program does "little or nothing to combat drug use," according to Scientific American. Kids enrolled in the program were just as likely to use drugs as those who weren't, researchers found in 2009.

 

[GoddamnyamanProf]

 

[ill]

Business as usual for D.A.R.E.

Fear mongering and false propaganda

 

[ill]

Oh a side note, the edibles markets need to get regulated asap.

 

[Ed MOTHEREFFING G]

The "author" of the story is one Haywood Bynum III

 

[The 2020 New Member]

 

[Ed MOTHERFUCKING G]

Oh a side note, the edibles markets need to get regulated asap.

As a regular user of retail edibles....elaborate

 

[ill]

As a regular user of retail edibles....elaborate

They need standardized dosing. 25mg lollipop at one place might be a lot stronger than the same thing at another place. Places really need to learn how to dose their edibles. The potency of the meds is different in every batch even within the same company. The bioavailability (the % of the THC that can be absorbed into your body) also varies greatly. Some places use things like lecithin to increase bioavailability and others don't. With the place that uses it, their products will have higher absorption rates than the competitors so that same 25mg lollipop will feel stronger.

As far as the labels go I would want to know what it was made with. Flower, BHO, ice wax, etc.
On that same note I'd add what farm the flower/wax was bought from. Was it grown organic, synthetic, etc.

They need child-proof containers for storage and they need to not put anything on the packaging that looks kid-friendly.

I know some places do a lot of this already especially in the PNW but its not universal and it needs to be. People are apt to have a much worse time "over-dosing" on edibles than if they smoked too much.

 

[Ed MOTHERFUCKING G]

They need standardized dosing. 25mg lollipop at one place might be a lot stronger than the same thing at another place. Places really need to learn how to dose their edibles. The potency of the meds is different in every batch even within the same company. The bioavailability (the % of the THC that can be absorbed into your body) also varies greatly. Some places use things like lecithin to increase bioavailability and others don't. With the place that uses it, their products will have higher absorption rates than the competitors so that same 25mg lollipop will feel stronger.

As far as the labels go I would want to know what it was made with. Flower, BHO, ice wax, etc.
On that same note I'd add what farm the flower/wax was bought from. Was it grown organic, synthetic, etc.

They need child-proof containers for storage and they need to not put anything on the packaging that looks kid-friendly.

I know some places do a lot of this already especially in the PNW but its not universal and it needs to be. People are apt to have a much worse time "over-dosing" on edibles than if they smoked too much.

Yeah I'm only exposed to Seattle rec retail market and theirs seem fairly self regulated for the good but I agree...I want to know what I'm getting and the THC mg content isnt the only indicator. 5 THC coffee is super weak compared to 5 THC spot brownie or 10 THC zoot.