DRAMA IS USED FOR ANTI-DRUG PROGRAM

Truth And Consequences

MIRIMAR AIR STATION - Dance music shook the canvas walls lined with
alcoholic beverages. Four teen-agers took long gulps and dipped their noses
into packets of white powder. The air was heavy with peer pressure.

"What's up, girl, just try one hit . . . that's my girl," one youth said to
his 16-year-old companion.

She tried a hit, and took many more before falling to the ground. No
breathing, no pulse. Her friends called 911 and then split.

Paramedics arrived. They could not revive her, and she was taken to a
hospital followed by her teary-eyed mother.

It was a pivotal moment for the 16-year-old, and plenty of eyes followed her
path toward self-destruction along a series of canvas tents set up at
Miramar Marine Corps Air Station.

The re-enactment, called "The Drug Store," is attracting about 1,000 San
Diego County elementary and middle school children this week to see
firsthand the consequences of drug and alcohol abuse in a dramatized format.

Teen-agers act out the consequences of substance abuse for visiting students
- -- arrest for drug possession, trial, drug rehabilitation, a return to drugs
and alcohol and, eventually, "death."

The nationwide program started in 1993 in Alabama. This is the second year
community groups in San Diego County have staged the event. It involves 21
agencies, including the Coronado and San Diego police departments, the Drug
Enforcement Administration and Scripps Mercy Hospital.

Yesterday, students from Shadow Hills Elementary School in Alpine and
Lakeside Middle School in Lakeside attended the presentation. For most, the
sequential story line was a refreshing deviation from hearing the typical
mantra: "Don't do drugs."

"They've been telling us that since the second or third grade," said Shadow
Hills fifth-grader Jamie Bruce, a veteran of special assemblies and
classroom visits from police officers and the occasional talking bird puppet.

But this time, "they didn't just tell us about it . . . you could see what
happens," said Shadow Hills fifth-grader Thomas Brierton.

What the students did not know was that many of the teen-agers portraying
the troubled protagonist and her friends have lived through similar
situations. They are working with San Diego Youth and Community Services to
straighten out their lives.

The 16-year-old girl said that she had gone through every step of the drama
in real life, except for overdosing on drugs.

"I wanted to do this for the kids so they could open their eyes to what's
going on," said the girl, who asked not to be identified.

She said probation and becoming a mother are the reasons she shook her own
drug and alcohol habit a year ago.

Vince Rice, spokesman for the San Diego field division of the Drug
Enforcement Administration, said he believes programs like this have a role
in keeping down reported drug use among teens.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse keeps tabs on drug use among eighth-,
10th-and 12th-grade students. It reports that 54.3 percent of high school
seniors in 1997 had used an illicit drug, defined as alcohol, cigarettes and
other drugs such as cocaine. That is down from the peak of 65.6 percent in
1981, but well above the 40.7 percent in 1992.

A DEA agent -- wearing black boots and holsters containing firearms -- led
off yesterday's presentation with a talk about the consequences of drug
abuse. He invited students to look at samples of crack, marijuana and other
drugs.

Then the agent grabbed a girl and forced from her grip a sample of "heroin."
He ordered her to put her hands behind her back and called over sheriff's
deputies to handcuff her.

"We thought it was real when they pushed all the other people away," said
Rolling Hills fifth-grader Autumn Boyle.

But the youths figured it out by the time they reached the second tent,
where the 16-year-girl was fingerprinted and photographed for a mug shot
before donning a blue jail suit.

At the third tent, Superior Court Judge Bonnie Dumanis whacked her gavel on
the desk to bring order to her airy courtroom decorated with the seal of
California. Actual attorneys represented the state and the 16-year-old girl.

"My purpose is to rehabilitate you, to get you on the right track," Dumanis
said before committing her to 30 days in juvenile hall, ordering 10 hours in
a work program and requiring several other conditions, such as drug and
rehabilitation counseling and a 6 p.m. curfew.

The 16-year-old then met with Melvin Bibbs, a youth developer with San Diego
Youth and Community Services. Bibbs told her she would have to meet with
other youths in group counseling and submit to random drug tests. He warned
her not to wear gang colors.

"It's gonna be so girlie," she said.

Bibbs said that keeping away from gang colors would help her change her
behavior, and that it is for her safety.

"If you dress in your colors and see someone else in other colors, then you
are going to have problems," he said.

The teen-ager agreed to try, but later met up with some friends at a party
in the next tent, where the debauchery descended into a deadly scenario. She
was placed on a stretcher and taken to an emergency room, where a team tried
unsuccessfully to revive her from her overdose using electrical shocks.

"My baby, my baby," sobbed her "mother."

The students were asked to pay their respects at the coffin located in the
final tent decorated with black balloons. They peered inside the coffin's
interior and saw their own reflections.