SCHOOLS TO REINFORCE ANTI-DRUGS MESSAGE THIS WEEK

ESCONDIDO - Students across the city will be seeing red this week
- - in the form of anti-drug and anti-violence messages.

Campuses in the 19,330-student Escondido Union School District and the
7,970-student Escondido Union High School District will be doing a
series of activities for Red Ribbon Week, which commemorates the life
of murdered undercover drug agent Enrique Camarena.

Camarena's mother had tried to talk him out of joining the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration, according to the Texas Commission on
Alcohol and Drug Abuse Web site.

"I can't not do this," Camarena reportedly told his mother. "I am only
one person but I want to make a difference."

In Escondido schools, and throughout the country, Red Ribbon Week
began Friday and ends on Halloween.

At the high schools, students will be given wristbands and ribbons if
they pledge to be drug free. There will also be information tables at
lunch time, and poster- and door-decorating contests.

Escondido High will hold an activity this week to illustrate the
effects of smoking and drinking. Students will breathe through a straw
to simulate emphysema and wear Vaseline-covered goggles to simulate
one's vision when drunk.

Local elementary school students will also be decorating doors,
designing posters and listening to various speakers. On Wednesday
afternoon, 200 children are signed up to march to City Hall for an
anti-drug rally.

The march begins at the North Inland Regional Recovery Center on North
Ash Street at 3 p.m.

In previous years, as many as 500 children have taken part in the
event. The drop this year could be because of schools' increasing
focus on academics, said Ana Lopez-Rosende, the elementary district's
pupil services coordinator.

The 1,120-student Lincoln School will hold a particularly large Red
Ribbon event on Friday.

The Miramar Marine Corps Air Station is coordinating an all-school
assembly from 12:30 to 1 p.m. Friday, attended by professional
athletes and members of the military, said Lincoln principal Elisa
Fregoso.

After the assembly, the enlisted men and women and the athletes will
visit classrooms to further discuss making good choices in life,
Fregoso said.

The air station chooses one school each year at which to hold the
assembly. Lincoln was selected after fourth-grade teacher Amada
Garduno met an official from the Air Corps' drug education program and
told him about the school, Fregoso said.

"We just got lucky and made the connection that way," Fregoso
said.

This week, students will also be wearing clothes alluding to anti-drug
messages.

Miller School, for instance, will have its students wear red on
Monday, don hats to "put a cap on drugs" on Tuesday, and sport
sunglasses to "shade out drugs" on Wednesday.

On Thursday, the children will wear sports jerseys to "team up against
drugs," and on Friday wear Halloween costumes to "Just say boo to drugs."

Grant Middle School will hold several lunchtime events, as well as
pushing painted red cups through a fence to read "Just say no."

Grant eighth-grader Humberto, 13, said lighthearted activities
are sometimes the best way to reach young people.

"They pay more attention," Humberto said.