A FORUM FOR COMMUNITY ISSUES : Youth / OPINION ON ANTI-DRUG PROGRAMS

WILLIAM WARNER, 17. A senior at Locke High School in L.A., William is a member of the African Student Union, the football team and the principal’s advisory board.

People at our school are responding to the programs in a positive way. You have some people that don’t even know the impact of drugs, so therefore the program is to also inform and teach them about drugs. Some people have dealt with drugs face-to-face, have had family members deal with drugs face-to-face, and our program helps them deal with the different situations that drugs put them in. We can see drugs every day.

Just by knowing what drugs can do to you before the dope dealers and pushers get to you will probably stop or decrease drug use. What I see in the community right now is a lot of people starting to wake up and understand that there’s much more to life than drugs. They’re starting to see that we all have a natural high and don’t need crack or marijuana to get high. With DARE and the Drug Free School program on our campus and the help of intelligent parents and teachers, the drug problem has gone down.

I disagree (with the idea that slogan-oriented programs like “Just Say No” are ineffective). The issue of drugs is much more than just a commercial or advertisement. When you see “Keep Away From Drugs,” it has more impact than “Buy Sure--It Keeps You Dry.” It’s just that word-- drugs, or killing or dying --that has an impact on students.

When I started seeing the Drug-Free program, that made me stop and want to find out more about it. We have signs that will be posted around different schools, not as an advertisement but as a warning, saying we will not tolerate drugs on our campus. So it’s becoming much more than just advertisement at Locke.