PETITE ANTI-DRUG POWERHOUSE DEFINES WHAT'S 'REALLY COOL'

In case you missed it, a study out this week reports that drug use among
teen-agers is dropping. The Partnership for a Drug-Free America announced,
among other findings, that 40 percent of the kids polled believe "really
cool" teens don't use drugs. That means abstaining from drugs is 5 percent
cooler than it was last year.

This is good news for a lot of folks, most of all the young people who may
not even fully realize its significance. But it's particularly rewarding
news for Martha Jackson, the Bakersfield woman who's been waging a
one-grandmother war on drugs, alcohol and tobacco since many of today's
teens were in bassinets.

Jackson, 75, is the heart and soul of Community Action Against Drugs and
Alcohol, or CAADA, a nonprofit organization founded in 1984. Sixteen years
ago, Jackson was one of perhaps 10 Bakersfield grandmothers determined to
take a stand against drugs. Today, CAADA's defensive line is entirely
different -- with one notable exception.

Jackson got involved after noticing more and more latch-key kids hanging
out on the street in her middle-class neighborhood just east of Compton
Junior High School.

"I'd see kids come home alone, smoking. They'd hide things in bushes," she
says. "I'd see kids take things out of their bicycle handlebars and pass
them around."

Inspired by then-first lady Nancy Reagan, Jackson approached the
Bakersfield City School District about establishing a Just Say No program
in schools. The school district just said no, all right. To her.

"They didn't think the problem was serious enough," says Jackson, who
started working instead with the Kern County Sheriff's Department and the
Bakersfield Police Department.

Eventually, the school district relented and allowed CAADA volunteers to
share their message with kids through classroom activities, celebrity
speakers and hugs -- lots of hugs.

Seeing Jackson at work last week at Bessie Owens Intermediate School, where
Ms. Fonseca's fourth-grade class was enjoying the spoils of victory (a
pizza party) in the Just Say No poster contest, it was clear the kids were
the ones initiating the hugs. Something about Jackson, who's not much
taller than some of the fourth-graders, is innately huggable.

"She has the genteel civility of a woman of an earlier generation, combined
with a bulldog personality on certain issues," says Daryl Thiesen,
prevention programs coordinator for the Kern County Superintendent of
Schools and president-elect of CAADA. "She is polite and kind and warm, but
if you get her on a certain topic -- and drug-abuse prevention is one that
really inspires her -- she'll talk your ear off, and before you walk away
you'll be signed up to help."

Jackson didn't come by her convictions casually. Through the years she's
had family members fall victim to substance abuse. She's also felt the
sting of defeat: In visits to rehabilitation programs, she's met recovering
drug addicts she's certain were of the right age and from the right
neighborhood to have been exposed to CAADA's programs.

Not everyone is saved.

CAADA's 1999-2000 budget is a mere $4,500. The money goes largely to
CAADA's Red Ribbon campaign, which concludes each year at Halloween, and
the Walk Against Drugs, which takes place in May.

But CAADA gets by with the help of service organizations like the Elks and
Rotary clubs, law-enforcement groups and the news media. TV anchors like
Rusty Shoop and Robin Mangarin lend their familiar faces to CAADA's
campaign for credibility, but Jackson admits she's always looking for new
blood of the camera-friendly sort.

CAADA President Bob Barton, a prosecutor with the Kern County District
Attorney's Office, notes that Jackson has been nominated for "all kinds" of
community service awards through the years, but she always seems to finish
as a runner-up.

Ask Jackson if she cares. "I'm not much on awards," she says. "It's my goal
to help children grow up to be somebody. That's all that matters."

Looking at her beam at the crayon-and-crepe-paper poster designed by Ms.
Fonseca's fourth-graders, you have to believe she means it.

For more information about CAADA, call 871-2319.