CAPISTRANO DISTRICT OKS ANTI-DRUG WRISTBANDS

Some students in the Capistrano Unified School District will get to
wear wristbands during Red Ribbon Week after all,but they won't be the
elastic type that can double as slingshots.

Prevention Works, an agency that works to keep kids tobacco-and
drug-free, anted up $700 to buy 10,000 red wristbands for San Clemente
students after Capistrano Unified School District Superintendent James
Fleming barred distribution of the elastic bands. Capo Unified
includes most of the area from Mission Viejo to San Clemente.

Fleming made the decision after learning that a Niguel Hills Middle
School student was hit is the eye be a berry launched from a elastic
Red Ribbon Week bracelet last year. The elastic bands, which will go
to about 750,000 students countywide next week, replaced paper ones
three years ago.

Kids like the red wristbands so much that San Clemete crime
prevention officer Jan Sener asked Prevention Works to come up with a
nonelastic alternative.

The bands are important, Sener said, because they give families a
symbol to start discussions about drugs. Businesses also offer
discounts and other incentives to students wearing the bracelet during
Red Ribbon Week, which begins Oct. 23.

Prevention Works Director Dan Hicks ordered 10,000 plastic bands that
proclaim "Drugs Destroy Dreams."

He offered to get more, for all of Capo Unified's 40,000 students.
That offer was rejected.

District spokeswoman Julie Jennings said the offer was rejected
because the district has already given each of its 40 campuses $300 to
$500 to spend on Red Ribbon Week.

Checked-by: Patrick Henry