“According to all the news reports, illegal drugs today are more prevalent than any time in the past,” Weehawken eighth-grader Ally Tierney wrote in the second-place-winning essay in the Weehawken Elks’ annual Drug and Alcohol Awareness contest. “Drug use continues to increase throughout all levels of society even though today we are more knowledgeable about their detrimental effects.”
Ally’s proclamation is the reason the Weehawken Elks Lodge works in conjunction with the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program that begins at the sixth-grade level in the town’s schools to prevent alcohol and drug abuse by young people.
“I am not just another student who has gone through year after year of drug and alcohol resistance classes,” eight-grader and first-place essay winner Bonnie Callahan read at an awards ceremony at the Elks Lodge. “As we become the adults we want to be, we must remember to prioritize and make wise choices. I must remember that the only influence I will always be under is the most positive one: my own.”
Weehawken students set a sober precedent
A total of eight local students were honored on Feb. 27 at the Weehawken Elks Lodge with a pizza party and awards ceremony. Five were honored for their winning essays (which they read that night) and three were honored for their posters, all based on the theme, “I choose not to use.”
The students were judged according to grade level, and five of them also won out of hundreds of district entries from nine towns and will go on to compete at the state level.
Elks Drug and Alcohol Awareness Chairman Lisa Rovito spent her holiday reading over 250 essays.
“Although it was difficult to choose,” she said, “the winners truly deserve their awards.”
Weehawken Mayor Richard Turner stopped by and proudly announced to the attending students and families, “We have the lowest level of vandalism; we have the lowest level of loitering of any place around us. We’re a great small community, and tonight’s an example of that.”
“By choosing a path that is good for our body and mind, we are also setting an example for the next generation,” sixth-grader and second-place essay winner Eleanor Woodruff read to the audience. “We send the message that living drug-free starts with each individual.”
“I must remember that the only influence I will always be under is the most positive one: my own.” –Bonnie Callahan
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Bad habits and peer pressure
Everyone has bad habits, sixth-grader and first-place essay winner Ruchi Amin told her peers and their parents Monday night. She noted that some bad habits could include nail-biting, complaining, and lying. But as a drug essay contest award winner, she ended her list with tobacco and cocaine.
The latter bad habits, Ruchi continued, are much more risky and harder to break. “Drugs are very easy to get addicted to,” she said in her essay, “even when taken in small amounts, and these small amounts build up into bigger ones.”
Often, poor choices and addiction come from peer pressure, seventh-grader and first-place essay winner Abigail Gamboa wrote. “There are a lot of people my age, which is a very young age, who are falling for peer pressure and doing drugs,” she added.
“You engage in risky behaviors and reprioritize everything, peer pressure being in style, and popularity crosses your mind more than family, health, and grades, no matter how important they were in the past,” Bonnie said of the pressures kids her age face nowadays. “Suddenly you will do anything, even alcohol and drugs, to seem important, even though we all know the health risks and side effects they have.”
Redefining cool
“What is free agency?” Eleanor asked the audience. Not surprisingly, many adults were left scratching their heads. She followed with an answer: “It means the right to make choices. One of these is the choice to be drug free.”
Henry Hogan, who won second place in the seventh grade category, feels strongly that he will be able to make the right choice and resist peer pressure because, as he wrote, “People who decide to do drugs are basically signing their own death warrant.”
Ruchi Amin noted insightfully, “Kids who do drugs to be cool are mistaken. I want to be healthy, smart and cool. People think if you do drugs you are cool, but really, you are only cool if you listen to your heart and stay away from drugs.”
Ally Tierney wrote, “Being a halfway intelligent teenager, I’ll have to conclude that to use drugs would be foolish.”
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