ANTI-DRUG WEEK: KIDS BUYING IT?

Education: Red Ribbon awareness effort remains popular after 13 years,but
teen substance abuse is on rise.

Students will again pin on small red ribbons this week and weave larger
ones into school fences,spelling out slogans railing against drug and
alcohol abuse.

Red Ribbon Week,an annual campaign to raise awareness about substance abuse
schoolchildren,has been an integral of school life in Orange County since
it first appeared in 1985.

But research suggests that drug use is growing among today's teens,who have
experienced Red Ribbon Week at school every year since kindergarten.

According to an annual survey of high school seniors conducted by the
University of Michigan,drug use began declining in the mid-1980s, bottoming
out in 1992 when just 27.1 percent reported taking illicit drugs within the
previous year. That figure has climbed steadily to 42.4 percent in 1997,the
most recent year for which results are available.

Some experts question the colorful campaign's effectiveness. Educators
agree that the statewide effort needs to be complemented by a lot of
parental reinforcement and other programs to make an impact.

"Unless you have a real ongoing process, those things get forgotten," said
Richard Cone, director of the University of Southern California's Joint
Education Project, which places university students as mentors in community
schools. "You go to a party and you forget red ribbons."

Greg Austin, co-director of a survey that monitors students' substance
abuse for WestEd, a nonprofit research group based in Los Alamitos, agreed.

"What we have learned in over 10 years of prevention research is that
one-shot interventions don't work," he said.

Students themselves offer a mixed view of Red Ribbon Week's impact.

"I don't think it works," said Natasha Gilliam, a freshman at El Modena
High in Orange. "I don't think wearing a red ribbon all week long is going
to stop people from using drugs. People are going to do drugs if they want
to."

El Modena junior James Gearhart said Red Ribbon Week probable sways some
students when schools put on effective activities. At the school last year,
rescue personnel and students enacted a simulated traffic accident caused
by an intoxicated student in front of the campus.

"I think the whole school was out there looking at it," Gearhart recalled.
"It was like, 'I really don't want to be involved in that.'"

Red Ribbon Week commemorates the memory of Enrique Camerena, a U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration agent murdered in 1985 in Mexico by drug
traffickers. Schools throughout the state establish their own activities to
each and remind students of the perils of drug and alcohol abuse.

This year, children at Palisades Elementary School in Capistrano Beach will
sign names to red strips of paper, pledging to red strips of paper,
pledging to "Just San No to Drugs," that well become a chain hung near
lunch tables. At Walker Junior High in La Palma, students will play
basketball games at lunchtime in a competition called "Slam Dunk - Drugs
are Junk."

Officials in several districts acknowledge that Red Ribbon Week only goes
so far - parents and classroom instruction about drug and alcohol abuse
stand a much greater chance of influencing children, they say.

"It's not 100 percent effective, but it's a focal point," said Trudy
Burrus, coordinator for health programs for the Saddleback Valley Unified
School District in the Mission Viejo area.

Red Ribbon Week is a time when students publicly denounce substance abuse -
a pact that can work, Burrus said. Further, children learn that many peers
also oppose abusing drugs and alcohol.

Saddleback Valley Unified required teachers to bring up substance abuse in
all sorts of classes, ensuring that Red Ribbon Week's message is constantly
reinforced. The older the students, the bigger the focus on data instead of
catch phrases.

Bob Montenegro, the safe-schools administrator for the Anaheim Union High
School District, said district statistics suggest that Red Ribbon Week
succeeds.

Anaheim Union adds about 2,000 students to its junior high and high school
campuses each year. Still, the annual number of district children
disciplined for possession of illegal substances averaged 165 for four
years, then sank to 105 last year.

Montenegro said administrators listen to students and often modify Red
Ribbon activities so their interest doesn't wane. For example, students
pick the slogans - not teachers, who might invent corny phrases.

Dour Stone, a spokesman for the California Department of Education, a
staunch Red Ribbon Week supporter, said the observance never was intended
to be a cure-all.

"A one-shot deal doesn't do it, but Red Ribbon Week ... was initiated to
(promote) comprehensive programs throughout the state," Stone said.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski