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Jim Grant / Tahoe Daily Tribune / In a staged hospital scene, South Tahoe Middle School seventh-grader Alejandro Pena is pronounced dead from a drug overdose during the Drug Store Project at Lake Tahoe Community College.
As he was ushered from one scene to another, seventh-grader Skyelar Velazquez was amazed at the production of the Drug Store Project.
Law enforcement was everywhere: in camouflage, in police blue and the black robe of a judge. School officials carried radios to keep track of student movement while teachers kept tabs on their charges. Members of California's National Guard helped keep students in line and in order.
"It doesn't help them that much. They want to help us," Velazquez said about the anti-drug program held Wednesday at Lake Tahoe Community College.
In its second year at South Lake Tahoe, the Drug Store Project used realistic scenes of two types of consequences - arrest and death - to hammer home the message to more than 350 seventh-graders of how drug use ruins lives.
Trying to keep the action realistic, Tahoe authorities, such as a courtroom bailiff, portrayed themselves.
In groups of 47, students would begin their ride in a scene called a pharmacy. California Department of Justice officers discussed the dangers of drugs and the benefits of life goals.
Law enforcement was everywhere: in camouflage, in police blue and the black robe of a judge. School officials carried radios to keep track of student movement while teachers kept tabs on their charges. Members of California's National Guard helped keep students in line and in order.
"It doesn't help them that much. They want to help us," Velazquez said about the anti-drug program held Wednesday at Lake Tahoe Community College.
In its second year at South Lake Tahoe, the Drug Store Project used realistic scenes of two types of consequences - arrest and death - to hammer home the message to more than 350 seventh-graders of how drug use ruins lives.
Trying to keep the action realistic, Tahoe authorities, such as a courtroom bailiff, portrayed themselves.
In groups of 47, students would begin their ride in a scene called a pharmacy. California Department of Justice officers discussed the dangers of drugs and the benefits of life goals.
During a walk-by of weaponry and pictures of drug busts, a student, previously chosen for the assignment, gets arrested for picking up a bag of methamphetamine from the display table.
As the officers' mood turned cold, the student was handcuffed. During a lax pat down, officers "discovered" a bag of marijuana and a payroll sheet on the student.
"You know what we said about choices?" said officer Ed Plantaric. "She just made hers."
From there students watch their classmate go through juvenile hall booking, a courtroom sentencing and counseling.
The death series began with a party scene where a classmate passes out and is taken out of a disco, with hip-hop music and swirling lights, to an emergency room. Lastly is a funeral scene where students look into a coffin and see a mirror.
"I realized you were trying to show us it would be us faced with all these choices," Velazquez said.
Officials don't know if the program will make an appearance next year. Lisa Huard, the district's safe schools coordinator who organized the production, had her position axed by the school board as part of budget reductions for next year.
As the officers' mood turned cold, the student was handcuffed. During a lax pat down, officers "discovered" a bag of marijuana and a payroll sheet on the student.
"You know what we said about choices?" said officer Ed Plantaric. "She just made hers."
From there students watch their classmate go through juvenile hall booking, a courtroom sentencing and counseling.
The death series began with a party scene where a classmate passes out and is taken out of a disco, with hip-hop music and swirling lights, to an emergency room. Lastly is a funeral scene where students look into a coffin and see a mirror.
"I realized you were trying to show us it would be us faced with all these choices," Velazquez said.
Officials don't know if the program will make an appearance next year. Lisa Huard, the district's safe schools coordinator who organized the production, had her position axed by the school board as part of budget reductions for next year.
"I'm a little concerned things like this will go by the wayside," Huard said.
Students in South Lake Tahoe experienced other recent but unnerving lessons regarding the dangers of drug use. In December, 10 South Tahoe High School students were arrested by an undercover officer buying drugs on campus.
Near the end of school last year, an eighth-grader fatally experimented with his cancer-stricken father's morphine pills.
Before that, in two separate incidents, teenagers were arrested after using BB guns to rob people or convenience stores to fund cocaine addictions.
A difference Wednesday from the previous year was the focus on methamphetamine and OxyContin, a prescription drug used for extreme pain relief.
"We have a lot of meth in this town, a lot," Huard said.
Students in South Lake Tahoe experienced other recent but unnerving lessons regarding the dangers of drug use. In December, 10 South Tahoe High School students were arrested by an undercover officer buying drugs on campus.
Near the end of school last year, an eighth-grader fatally experimented with his cancer-stricken father's morphine pills.
Before that, in two separate incidents, teenagers were arrested after using BB guns to rob people or convenience stores to fund cocaine addictions.
A difference Wednesday from the previous year was the focus on methamphetamine and OxyContin, a prescription drug used for extreme pain relief.
"We have a lot of meth in this town, a lot," Huard said.
"We see a lot of methamphetamine in the Tahoe area," said Nate DaValle, an officer with the California Department of Justice.
"You can't mix legal or illegal drugs with alcohol," warned Scott Heng, a South Lake Tahoe police officer.
At the outside stations, firefighters spoke of OxyContin and its influence on the body. During a presentation of the vehicle-searching skills of K-9 officer Buddy, Brian McGuckin pulled a bag of meth from the back of the rear seat.
Velazquez said typical anti-drug messages are ignored because people take substances to feel good. But the Drug Store Project presented the adverse outcomes of such use, he said.
"This really shows you what can really happen," he said.
- E-mail William Ferchland at wferchland@tahoedailytribune.com.
"You can't mix legal or illegal drugs with alcohol," warned Scott Heng, a South Lake Tahoe police officer.
At the outside stations, firefighters spoke of OxyContin and its influence on the body. During a presentation of the vehicle-searching skills of K-9 officer Buddy, Brian McGuckin pulled a bag of meth from the back of the rear seat.
Velazquez said typical anti-drug messages are ignored because people take substances to feel good. But the Drug Store Project presented the adverse outcomes of such use, he said.
"This really shows you what can really happen," he said.
- E-mail William Ferchland at wferchland@tahoedailytribune.com.
