TEENAGER'S ADVICE: 'PICK YOUR FRIENDS CAREFULLY'

Thirteen-year-old Evan Beasley is Mississippi born and bred, but this year,
he transferred to the Houston public school system, where he's in eighth
grade. He echoes the drug-avoidance strategies expressed thus far by older
teens we've talked with: "Be strong and speak up for yourself, and you
shouldn't have a lot of problems," he wrote via e-mail.

Beasley says he believes his strong point is that "I am pretty
independent," and he says he's willing to try new things, but not if they
are too risky, "And if I just don't want to, then, hey, I don't have to.

"The point is that you need to have an open mind about some things, and you
have to know when to have the tightest mind in the world and not let other
people influence your opinion."

School- and family-related activities take up a lot of his waking hours,
but he says he sometimes makes time for a movie or going to the park with
friends.

But he adds that you have to keep heads-up for "things that might be weird,
anything that's making you feel unsafe." If your instincts tell you it's
time to split, "Go ahead and bolt," he writes. "Make up some dumb excuse
and go home. When all is said and done, it depends on who you hang out
with. Pick your friends carefully."

This young man's major distractions are ice hockey and football, and as he
points out, you can't do drugs and excel in sports, but he isn't
embarrassed to admit that he has avoided drugs ("there were plenty of times
I could have done them") for fear of being caught breaking the law.

"(Do) any kind of drug, whether it's crack or ecstacy, and you're done like
dinner," he writes. "So you stay away from them out of respect for yourself
and for the people and things that you love."

He confirms that kids at his school know who to go to if they want drugs,
but that the student dealers don't pressure classmates to buy and use.

"The (kids) who are dealing or covering up for the people who do those
things know that they will get caught. You have 100-some-odd days of school
and that's 100-plus days for someone to rat you out.

"If you just can hang with the right people, then you will not get bothered
by dealers, doers and whatever else is going on in the big wide world of
junior high."