Pubdate: Mon, 10 Jul 2006
Source: Herald News (West Paterson, NJ)
Copyright: 2006 North Jersey Media Group Inc.
Contact:  http://www.northjersey.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2911
Author: Margaret K. Collins
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

KEEPING CHILDREN ON TRACK, OFF DRUGS

PEQUANNOCK -- You'll never win if you're on drugs.

That's the message of a winning commercial written by a  pair of 
13-year-olds from Pequannock Valley Middle  School. How good was the 
original script? It beat out  1,000 others statewide.

Dana Carrubba and Deanna DeVito started filming their  public service 
announcement Friday on the Pequannock  Township High School track.

"The message is that if you do drugs, it's not just  that it can hurt 
you," Dana said. "But you could lose  your friends and end up hanging 
out with people who  only like you because you do drugs."

They wrote the script, imagined the visual shots and  picked the 
background sound. It was a graded assignment  from Gillian Freebody, 
their seventh-grade Gifted and  Talented teacher.

"They were able to get a very powerful, concise concept  across in 30 
seconds," Freebody said. "They really sunk  their teeth into it."

Last September, the Pequannock school district was the  first in the 
state to launch voluntary, random drug  testing at its middle school, 
with 250 out of 615  students participating.

About 30 percent of the 250 were tested, Principal  William Trusheim 
said Friday. None tested positive.

"That's what we expected," Trusheim said. "Particularly  at the 
middle-school level we view random drug testing  as a deterrent."

The two girls lathered up with sunscreen Friday morning  and spent a 
couple of hours starring in their script --  and producing it -- with 
the help of a film crew from  Public Image Media.

The commercial depicts Dana and Deanna racing around a  track. A 
fictional timeline of events in their lives --  First Communion, 
joining a basketball team, etc. --  runs like a stock market ticker 
tape at the bottom of  the screen. The student who takes drugs trips 
and falls  several times; the one who stays drug-free cruises to  the 
finish line.

Deanna volunteered to play the part of the student who  uses drugs 
and continually trips.

"The falling part is to show if you use drugs, it's  going to be a 
downfall," she said, her knees scraped  from the many takes.

The girls' parents said they "absolutely" worry about  the growing 
pressure -- at younger and younger ages --  on kids to use alcohol, 
tobacco and illegal drugs.

"You only have a few short years to get them educated  and 
confident," said David Carrubba, Dana's dad. "And  then the world 
influences them even more."

The commercial is scheduled to air this fall on as many  as 40 
network and cable stations in the state.

"It's a simple concept but a powerful message," said  Angelo Valente, 
director of Partnership for a Drug-Free  New Jersey -- the contest's 
sponsor. "We thought it  would communicate well to their peers and 
we've found  that peer-to-peer messages are the most effective in 
keeping kids off drugs."
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