You gotta love D.A.R.E., the anti-drug program created by late Los Angeles police Chief Daryl Gates in 1983. It's done a great job of eradicating drugs in schools. More importantly, it's made snitches out of children who have been taught by cops to turn in their parents.

That's what happened last week in Matthews, North Carolina, a suburb of Charlotte, where an 11-year-old elementary school kid brought a few joints to campus and turned them in, saying they belonged to mom and dad.

This, of course, was after the good officers at D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) came to school to give their anti-drug lecture.

Matthews police Officer Stason Tyrrell told WBTV the 5th grader did the right thing:

“Even if it's happening in their own home with their own parents, they understand that's a dangerous situation because of what we're teaching them. That's what they're told to do, to make us aware.”

The dad, age 40, and the mom, age 38, were arrested on suspicion of marijuana possession and possession of drug paraphernalia — misdemeanors.

The dad, who's name was withheld by the TV station, told WBTV it's “no one's business” how the 11-year-old got a hold the joints, and that “I don't give drugs to my kids.”

D.A.R.E. has been widely criticized as ineffective, a product of the Just-Say-No '80s. But its L.A.-based proselytizers carry on as if Nancy Reagan is still the first lady.

What's ironic is that, had this case happened in D.A.R.E.'s hometown, the parents very well could have had a prescription for their weed, and the cops might have had to lay off.

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