50,000 HOOSIER STUDENTS SIGN DRUG-FREE PLEDGE

While Some Question How Effective, Realistic That Is, Advocates Say Most
Take It Seriously.

WASHINGTON -- At age 17, Justin Sufan of Indianapolis has an entire life
ahead of him, filled with unexpected twists and turns.

But he's sure of one thing. He says he will never smoke a cigarette, take
drugs or drink alcohol.

"I can see the road ahead of me, and I don't see drugs in it," Justin said
Monday.

Justin is one of 50,000 Indiana students from preschool on up who have
signed a pledge promising to stay alcohol-, tobacco- and drug-free
throughout their lives.

Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson had challenged the Marion County Youth
Congress -- a school-based prevention program -- to collect 40,000 lifetime
pledges, and the students more than delivered.

As a reward, a group of 14 traveled to Washington to deliver the signatures
to White House drug czar John Walters.

"The view is that it's not appropriate to tell other people what to do,"
Walters said. "But this is a problem that affects everybody. And we are not
good citizens, we're not good neighbors, we're not good brothers and
sisters if we look the other way."

The government has not studied the effectiveness of such pledges in
preventing drug use or abuse.

But Walters said it's particularly important to keep teen-agers from
experimenting because they're more susceptible to addiction.

Others, though, question how effective and realistic the lifetime pledges are.

Kitty Harris, director of the Center for the Study of Addiction at Texas
Tech University, said most pledges are "pretty much emotional responses" to
rallies or other events where the signatures are recruited. They're
unlikely to be strictly adhered to unless they're combined with other
programs that teach life skills such as decision-making and
problem-solving, Harris said.

"It certainly means kids are having the opportunity to think in terms of
being abstinent," Harris said of the lifetime promise. "But that's a pretty
big pledge."

Randy Miller, executive director of Drug-Free Marion County, which
participated in the pledge program, acknowledged that making the pledge a
lifelong commitment did make it more difficult to get participants. One
board member brought the pledge to his Sunday school class and was
surprised when no one would sign it. All of them wanted to be able to drink
when they turned 21, he said.

Miller said that showed him that most of those who signed the pledge are
serious about sticking with it.

"We're trying to get the message out that there are a lot of kids that are
willing to say, 'We don't do those things. We're willing to tell you we
don't do those things,' " he said.

Justin said the pledge was easy for him to take for both health and
economic reasons.

"If I smoke a cigarette or drink, I'm wasting my money on things I don't
need," he said.

Students as young as preschool signed promises reading: "I pledge to keep
my dreams alive/And be all that I can be,/I know I can, and that's
because/I pledge to stay Drug Free."

By the end of high school, said Marsha Rosenbaum, director of the San
Francisco office of the Drug Policy Alliance, 80 percent of students have
drunk alcohol, and more than half have tried illegal drugs.