Another problem I have with DARE is that it conflates some important messages (like don't give in to peer pressure) with its message of all drugs will ruin your life. When people learn that certain drugs they mention are just not that bad, other important messages could be dismissed as well.
Note: I don't have any study to support this but it's my hypothesis.
Exactly this. The program is infantilizing and not based in fact. There are great reasons why you may not want to do a number of drugs: opiates (high addiction potential, incapacitating); meth (wrecks you); cocaine (less problematic but you can't trust the cutting agents, it can exacerbate cardiac conditions, it can give you transient ED if you're a guy); molly (one poor formulation can kill you or leave you mentally incapacitated for life). I don't recall this ever being reviewed at a D.A.R.E event. All I remember hearing is "drugs are categorically bad and dangerous" which as you say falls down under scrutiny when you think about alcohol, weed, or even cocaine to some degree.
Alcohol, weed and cocaine are pretty bad and dangerous, though. It just happens to be that those are more or less socially acceptable ways to become temporarily stupid at the expense of long-term health, which I agree makes "abstinence only" education efforts seem hypocritical. Since people are going to self-medicate one way or another, teaching responsible use seems like the better choice.
If by "not bad" you mean "not as bad as other drugs" or "I can live with the consequences", then sure. Otherwise, messing with your body's chemical pathways tends to have negative side-effects, especially when you overdo it.
I partake but there are absolutely negative side effects to both. Cocaine is pretty damn addictive and weed is hardly consequence free either (although it probably has the best accessibility:side effect ratio out of any drug that i'm aware of)
In my experience, weed has tended to make me spacey and forgetful. Unless it's headbanger skunk, in which case there's more agitation. And after 50+ years, perhaps some of that has become permanent. Or it could have been all the LSD, or just garden-variety dementia :)
But cocaine, that's some iffy stuff. It's possible to get addicted, even snorting hydrochloride salt. And once you get into freebasing aka crack, you're also looking at ~permanent downregulation of dopamine receptors. So basically, there's no more feeling happy :( Without the cocaine, anyway.
Note: I don't have any study to support this but it's my hypothesis.