Red Ribbon Week to focus on drug abuse

Amy R. Spurgeon

NEWPORT-MESA -- As the school district’s Red Ribbon Week begins today,

one Newport Beach mother is hoping her son’s story will stop others from

making the same mistakes he did.

“I cope because I know he is free from this,” Judy Davis said. “But I

still cry every day.”

An honor student and award winning artist, Robert “Bobby” Davis was 21

when he was found dead, apparently of a heroin overdose, by his fiancee

in the home they shared in Southern California. Drug paraphernalia was

later found hidden in the home.

Since his death, Davis has made it her mission to educate others about

the reality of drug abuse. Red Ribbon Week, promoting anti-drug messages

and programs at schools across the country, gives her the perfect stage.

She and the medical director of Hoag’s Chemical Dependency Unit, Dr.

Daniel Headrick, will speak to Corona del Mar eighth-graders about

chemical dependency Thursday and Friday.

The school is the first in the district to have Davis share her personal

tragedy with the goal of helping others.”Serious drug experimentation

begins in seventh, eighth and ninth grades,” said Don Martin, the

principal of Corona del Mar High School and Middle School. “It is a good

time to catch them early.”

Martin acknowledged the prevalence of high school parties throughout the

district. It is at these parties where youths have access to drugs and

alcohol, he said.

Martin also said there are parents in the district who supply youths with

alcohol and practice “benign neglect” by frequently leaving homes empty

on weekends and available for teenage parties.

Still, he stressed, they are not the norm.

“There are a lot of parents who are fighting the fight,” he said.

Davis and Headrick will spend hourlong sessions in English classes

raising drug-abuse awareness among students. An informational packet

regarding chemical dependency will be issued during the presentation with

the intent of striking up discussions at home.

The 1999 National Drug Control Strategy issued to Congressby the White

House lists youth education as the top goal in the fight against drug and

alcohol abuse.

“If children reach adulthood without using illegal drugs, alcohol or

tobacco, they are unlikely to develop a chemical dependency problems,”

Barry McCaffrey, the director of the Office of the National Drug Control

Policy, wrote when issuing the strategy. “To this end, the strategy seeks

to involve parents, coaches, mentors, teachers, clergy and other role

models in a broad prevention campaign.”

The United States has produced an annual drug control strategy since

1989.

Red Ribbon Week officially concludes Friday with the sounding of the last

school bell. However, many feel a longer commitment should be made

between schools, parents and students.

“I hate the fact that it is only one week,” Davis said. “Red Ribbon Week

should be all year.”