For decades, our nation has waged its so-called “War On Drugs” in an effort to eliminate the senseless socio-economic upheaval and tragic loss of human potential.

Efforts to combat this problem include rehabilitation, incarceration, interdiction and causing Roundup™ to rain down on the entire nation of Colombia.

Of course, these actions only treat the symptoms of the drug problem, so a lot of effort also goes into early education. If a generation of kids learns the perils of drugs at an early age, so the thinking goes, they’ll grow up into non-drug-using adults.

It is this education route that I think holds the most promise for success, but I don’t think programs like D.A.R.E. go far enough. It is insufficient, in my opinion, for kids to merely have a healthy fear of drugs; we need to cultivate a sense of loathing.

The modern American education system has plenty of experience in generating loathing in students and I suggest that we leverage this ability for a constructive war on drugs. Think of your school-child years, and think of all of the things you learned to loathe: the cliques, the spirit assemblies, athletics, homework, tests.

Ah yes… homework and tests. How better to cause a pupil to hate something than by requiring homework and threatening with a test?

Among me and my friends, the most dreaded homework assignment was the book report. Before I could even start on the report, I would have to plow my way through some inscrutible, symbolism-infested, several-hundred-year-old tome, which I had absolutely no hope of understanding. Frequently, I would rely on my friend Cliff to get the job done.

And, even when I did manage to get the gist of a particular opus, it had no specific relevance for my adolescent self. What young person can wrap his or her mind around adultery as in The Scarlet Letter, or the irony of Eustacia Clementine as in The Return of the Native, or whatever the hell Thanatopsis is about as in Thanatopsis?

The end result of enduring these seemingly-endless years of senseless reading, reading and more reading, is, that as an adult, I fucking hate to read!!!!!!

So, let’s channel this hate for the good of a new generation. I propose that future school curricula include years and years of drug reports. Each semester, students would be required to get high on a variety of controlled substances, and then write reports about the experiences.

Imagine the conversation that would ensue in the school corridors:

Tyler: Dude, I was up all night playing Second Life Teen, and never got around to dropping that acid for tomorrow’s test.

Dakota: Man, I gotta smoke blunts? We just did a whole section on tobacco last month, and weed the month before. Now we’re doin’ ‘em both?

Kayla: Ohmigod, like, me and Caitlin were at the mall, and, we’re all, like, looking for Zack and whatever, and, then, like, Kyle and Gabe met us at Sunglass Hut, and, we’re all like, ‘Don’t go there,’ and we’ve got the soccer game on Friday, and the big beer test, and Nate and Abbey were making out in her bedroom instead of sniffing glue like they were supposed to, and, ohmigod, Mr. Crandall gave us a pop quiz on cocaine, and I’m, like, all bummed out or whatever, ’cause I, like, totally didn’t study, and then Mackenzie and Cameron…