You’ve seen the signs around campus, and probably even the ads in the Daily. “Most of us don’t drink and drive.” “Most of us don’t smoke cigarettes.” “Most of us don’t have more than four drinks when we party.”

If you’re like me, you’ve internalized these posters. You’ll walk by them, and hardly notice them. They’ll post ads in the Daily and I’ll say to myself, yeah, well, some people still do.

The problem is that, in a way, that’s the natural reaction. It’s a frightening one at that.

Take for instance the most recent ad that’s now readily visible around campus – “80 percent of us don’t drink and drive.” That’s good news, right? 80 percent of college-age Iowans don’t drink and drive. At this point an alarm should definitely go off in your head. That means 20 percent of us do. 20 percent of college-age Iowans drive after drinking.

In a telephone survey, Iowans age 18 to 24 were asked, “During the past month, how many times have you driven when you’ve had too much to drink?” For the majority of ISU students, “too much” probably means more than one or two beers, making the message that is supposed to be a positive statement about the masses only more frightening.

There are certainly questions about the survey’s validity. After all, odds are if you’re an alcoholic, you aren’t the type who answers the phone at 9 a.m. just waiting to answer some survey questions. More likely you’re looking for your ashtray where you spilled some tequila the night before.

At the University of Northern Iowa, the questions go far deeper. A survey claims to have found that 93 percent of UNI students exercised for at least 20 minutes at least once a week during the past six months.

Now I’ve never been to UNI, but that’s got to be the healthiest-looking campus in the world if this were actually true. But more likely, exercise was liberally interpreted as meaning not sitting watching TV. The fact is, walking 20 minutes once in a week is not going to keep you from being obese. For your information, UNI students, sex is also not an aerobic exercise, so it should also not be counted.

As for the 7 percent who said no, I’m proud. Those people should be our next politicians, because they have a level of honesty unsurpassed in the world. It takes a real truth-teller to admit they haven’t exercised 20 minutes in six months. The downside is that these people will likely die of a heart attack at the age of 24 before they’re eligible for major public office.

I can attest to the inaccuracy of drug surveys because of the ones I was given in junior high school. The options were always ludicrously incomplete. I would answer questions correctly until they led me into a loop of circular logic. For example, the standard question: “Do you smoke?” would be answered correctly.

“No,” I answered. The next question would just baffle me: “When did you start smoking?” Um, apparently right now, because I just said I didn’t. But I would have to answer to the best of my ability, since the survey never told me to skip the question. “Age 10.” Next question? “How much do you smoke?” Answer: More than 3 packs a day. And they would go on like that, running the entire spectrum of drug use. Odds are in the early years of the Clinton presidency, my survey responses to these poorly written surveys made me responsible for well over 10 percent of the world’s drug use.

Regardless of their accuracy, there’s a bigger issue at stake here. Does anyone else remember DARE? Odds are, thanks to the efforts of local police departments and the federal government, you got to participate in DARE at some point in elementary school. It would teach you lessons like how to say no to drug dealers, including walk away and find a friend.

Was DARE effective? Maybe, maybe not, but the point was that DARE taught us the exact opposite thing that the Most of Us program is pushing. DARE said avoid peer pressure. Just because everyone else does something doesn’t make it cool. If your friends use drugs, don’t make that be the reason you do. In comparison, the Most of Us program is the suspicious-looking guy in the trenchcoat that says “Hey, kid, if you want to be cool, you won’t drink and drive.”

What kind of message is this sending us?

Here’s my take on it. When we were teenagers, peer pressure was bad. Doing things just because other people do them is bad, and leads people to dress alike, act alike and like the same things. But now you’re at college and you’re free to be the least like you as you can possibly be. Take that opportunity. Most of Us might convince someone to not binge drink, not use drugs or not drink and drive. It might even convince someone to peel themselves off the couch and go for a jog once every six months. But as for the way it does it, I don’t like it. Programs like the BRAD 21 program are probably just as successful without resorting to horrific arguments based on peer pressure.

Sorry, Most of Us, I kick it Nancy Reagan style. I just say no. Now leave me alone.

Tim Kearns is a senior in political science from Bellevue, Neb.