TEENS RALLY AGAINST DRUG USE, DRINKING DURING TCU CAMP

Four-day Event Helps Teach Students About Recognizing Signs Of Abuse

Fort Worth - A pounding, stomping, whooping group of teenagers cheered on
their battle against a formidable foe Friday. But they won't meet this
enemy on a football field or basketball court.

The hundreds of teens who descended on Texas Christian University this week
came to learn how to fight underage drinking and drug use and lobby for a
nationwide effort to lower the blood alcohol level for drunken-driving
offenses.

"We're standing on the drug-free side," the students chanted, waving their
arms in unison amid a pep-rally atmosphere.

Sponsored by Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the Texas Alcoholic Beverage
Commission, the four-day camps teach students about recognizing drug and
alcohol abuse, doing community service, mentoring, fund raising and meeting
with political leaders.

On Friday, the students signed a giant banner that will be sent to Capitol
Hill to lobby legislators to approve a bill limiting blood-alcohol content
to 0.08 for adult drivers. Texas is among 18 states and the District of
Columbia that currently set 0.08 as the legal limit; most other states set
their limits at 0.10.

MADD national president Millie I. Webb said Friday that teenagers are
subject to immense peer pressure to drink and use drugs, but they can also
become the most vocal advocates against it. The group recently amended its
mission statement to include preventing underage drinking.

"No longer can we allow society to dismiss underage drinking as merely a
rite of passage," she told the students. "Rather than being a part of the
problem of underage drinking, you are a part of the solution.

"Your actions touch more people than you know. It's time these adults
listen to you."

Ms. Webb said Texas has a zero-tolerance policy that considers any alcohol
in the system of an underage drinker illegal. But she said she worries
about other drivers who hit and kill others while they're driving drunk.

"We need to aspire to a new national standard," she said.

"These kids deserve to drive on safe highways."

Statewide in 1998, 556 people between 15 and 20 years old were killed in
traffic crashes - almost half were alcohol-related, she said.

Brent Blackburn, a MADD programs coordinator, said the Youth Leadership
Power Camps were started in Texas and are spreading throughout the country.
He said the hundreds of junior and senior high school students lead
anti-drug efforts at their own schools.

"The real movement now is off the campuses and out into the community," he
said. "It's very important that young people get involved with prevention.
They're often learning from the mistakes that others have made."

Connie Curtis, 16, who lives in the small East Texas town of Wills Point,
said it's an accepted part of life for high school students and even junior
high students to drink.

"I'm seeing my friends drinking and coming to school and talking about it
like it's cool," she said.

"I don't agree with it. There's a law against it, and we should abide by it."

Connie said a classmate in all four grade levels of her high school has
died in an alcohol-related incident within the last few years.

Chequan Lewis, 16, a senior at Haltom High School in Haltom City, said the
MADD workshops give him tools to convince his friends there are other ways
to have fun.

"To be able to successfully fight a war, you need to be adequately
equipped," said Chequan, who lives in Watauga. "I want to persuade a person
with facts. It's about saving lives."