KIDS RALLY TO STOP DRUG USE
Forfeiture Money Being Used To Keep School Efforts Going

(Lake County) -- Lake County State's Atty. Michael Waller couldn't stop
smiling Wednesday afternoon while doling out four grants of $350 each
to help school drug-prevention programs.

Waller's largess was money taken from the pockets of drug dealers
through forfeiture laws that allow government to confiscate virtually
anything the dealers use to keep their businesses running.

What could be better, Waller asked, than using the drug dealers' money
to help turn away potential customers?

"This is truly satisfying," Waller said after giving the grants to
schools in Gages Lake, Antioch and Mundelein. "There can be no better
use for the money."

The fourth grant went to In Touch, a Lake County drug-prevention group
affiliated with the Lake County Health Department, the College of Lake
County and the Northern Illinois Council on Alcohol and Substance Abuse.

In Touch was the prime mover behind the Red Ribbon Rally, held
Wednesday in the Lincoln Plaza at the Lake County Courthouse in Waukegan.

For the past 11 years, schools across Lake County have participated in
Red Ribbon Week, during which teachers are encouraged to incorporate
themes about the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse into their
curriculums.

Judge Barbara Gilleran Johnson, who heads the 19th Circuit's felony
division, said she was pleased when kids took turns at the microphone
proclaiming themselves to be drug-free.

After dancing with McGruff the Crime Dog to a Beatles song played by
the Waukegan High School Marching Band, Johnson gazed out at the youths.

"I used to be in Juvenile Court, and I see a lot of recidivism," she
said. "But these kids I won't see at all."

Gary Fields, superintendent of Zion-Benton Township High School
District 126, received the Enrique Camarena "One Person Can" award for
his efforts to combat drug and alcohol use at the school. The award is
named for a federal Drug Enforcement Administration officer killed in
Mexico in the line of duty in 1985.

Students from Wauconda Middle School performed a skit dramatizing the
slippery slope many youngsters get on when they make the decision to
use drugs, alcohol or tobacco.

The characters in the skit quickly learn the error of their
ways.

"You don't look so cool," one girl says to another of her pretend
alcohol use. "You look like somebody stepped on your face."